Chimera
by That-Other-Doctor
Summary: Set between "The Masque of Mandragora" and "The Hand of Fear"."Chimera, noun : A Fantasy, Dream, or Desire." All good things must end. Death is the final, undiscovered country, from whose border no traveler returns. But, while there is life, there is hope. Nobody knows that quite like the Doctor.
1. Chapter 1: Blood in the Snow

_**WELCOME! This is the start of a rather long fan-fiction I've just finished writing. It's 20 chapters in length plus an Epilogue, so I'd clear the calendar for some reading time, if I were you. Remember, slow and steady wins the race!  
Features the 4th Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, an OC called the Caretaker, a rather messed-up TARDIS, and Harry Sullivan, sort of. It takes place in between "The Masque of Mandragora" and "The Hand of Fear". There is a bit of character shipping (3 guesses who), but it's not a major focus. Please, enjoy and feel free to leave your thoughts. This is my first story, so I always appreciate feedback!**_

**-TheOtherDoctor =/\=**

_Somewhere in space and time . . ._

* * *

The pleasant, seasonal snowfall had turned sharp and bitter as the long, dark night wore on. The snowflakes, once fluttering silently to the earth amid a bed of cotton whiteness, were now pelting the rooftops with angry bullets of ice and sleet. Anyone with sense was hunkered down near their firesides, taking comfort in the warmth of the family flame or in the shared heat of the local pub. Additionally, anyone with sense knew better than to walk the streets at night, no matter the weather. Here, darkness was more than a lack of daylight. Darkness was a force: hunting, prowling, ever vigilant of the unwary wanderer with no-one to miss him. The shadows were to be feared, and rightfully so.

Anyone with sense knew that.

Needless to say, the Doctor, Harry Sullivan, and Sarah Jane Smith were not ones to be pegged as people with sense.

The Doctor, for one, was a tall, gangly chap who was three kinds of crazy and many more kinds of eccentric. It was easy to see that he was something more than human. His extraterrestrialism was apparent through his outlandish clothing, pendular temperament, and slightly hawkish, anomalistic appearance. If his mass of wild curls, face-splitting smile, and 15-foot long scarf didn't catch one off-guard, then the slightly maniacal glint in his huge, bright blue eyes certainly would.

To the attractive, acerbic journalist Sarah Jane Smith, the Doctor was both designated driver and best friend. To Surgeon-Lieutenant Harry Sullivan, the Doctor was an arrogant nuisance, an incorrigible meddler, and the most remarkable man he had ever met.

To the Doctor, all three of them were in big trouble.

The trio slunk through the deep, fluid shadows, avoiding the light of the gas lamps that lined the frostbitten streets. Harry and Sarah, each dressed in the semi-Victorian attire of the native species, winced as the hardened soles of their shoes clattered on the cobblestone sidewalks. The sound echoed between the tightly knit homes and reverberated down the street. The Doctor, who had naturally refused to blend in with the natives and had opted instead for his traditional maroon coat and garish, multicolored scarf, glared at his duo of companions and willed them to be just a tad bit _quieter_.

"Do shut up, you two." He hissed through clenched teeth, "Honestly, humans are the only lifeforms who could manage to make so much confounded racket in three inches of snow!"

Sarah's scowl was enough to curdle sour milk. On top of the snow, the cold, and her general misery, the Doctor's snappish antics were the last things she wanted. "Well, we can't bloody well help it, can we? Wooden balmorals aren't exactly the shoe choice of James Bond, you know."

Harry was about to way in but, wisely, opted to stay silent. When the Doctor was in a foul mood, Harry Sullivan wasn't usually the lucky chap to receive the inkling of his sentiment.

Ignoring Sarah's cynical remark, the Doctor nervously twisted his battered fedora in his fist and poked his head from their hiding spot. His bulbous blue eyes widened as he glanced around the corner of the nearest building. Through the sleet, multiple pinpricks of red light could be seen. The beams of search lanterns cut through the inky gloom of the confined avenue, concentrating on the three lone humanoids.

Suddenly, the sound of pursuit could be heard in the not-too-far distance.

"Go!" The Doctor barked, "GO!"

The trio bolted from their shadowy hiding place, sprinting down the street faster than they would have ever thought possible. The wind blew against them and the sleet pelted their faces with relentless brutality, but they kept running.

Sarah ran until her lungs were burning, until she felt her heart would burst. She ran like her life was in mortal danger.

Which it was.

Harry sprinted alongside her, risking an occasional glance over his shoulder in the hope of catching a glimpse of their pursuers.

"Run! Don't look back, just run!" The Doctor shouted from ahead. The Time Lord showed no signs of tiring; his long legs carried him until he'd significantly distanced himself from his two human companions. His baggy clothing and trailing scarf didn't seem to inconvenience him at all. Before long, he was distinguishable only as a gloomy figure melting into the fog.

"We . . . can't . . . make it . . ." Harry gasped as he ran beside Sarah. His old-fashioned London brogue had been reduced to barely a wheeze.

"Yes, we can." Terror-driven adrenaline gave Sarah the boost of energy she needed. "Come on! We have to catch the Doctor!"

It was the thought of the trio's pursuers that prevented Harry from collapsing on the spot. The prospect of what awaited them should they be caught drove them on, deeper and deeper into the stormy night.

Finally, the Doctor rounded another corner and stopped. He grabbed Sarah and Harry by the scruff of their necks and wheeled them around next to him. The three backed up against the rough brick of the building, hoping that the shadows of the structure were enough to hide them from the piercing eyes that stalked the streets.

"We have to get back to the TARDIS." Harry spluttered while sucking in lung-fulls of oxygen. Despite being a limber man of considerable fitness, he sounded like an overweight asthmatic.

"Escape is an ample suggestion, Harry, if we didn't have quite a few unhappy natives patrolling the city while armed with tracking sensors and considerable bad tempers." Retorted the Doctor.

"We have to do . . . something." Sarah persisted stubbornly through gasps of air, gesticulating wildly with her hands, "We can't . . . hide in the shadows all night. We'll be hunted down . . . and . . . shot like animals!"

Harry gave an impertinent snort. "I have half a mind to assume they're going to do that anyway, Sarah. Hiding or no hiding."

"You, Dr. Sullivan, are not helping in the _slightest_!" Sarah hissed back venomously.

The Doctor ignored his companions' exchanges, choosing instead to formulate a plan of his own. The one he decided upon wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But with some considerable cleverness and a great deal of pot luck, it could work. The plan would guarantee Sarah and Harry's safety, at the very least.

His idea saddened him, though. It saddened him beyond comprehension . . .

Sarah's voice eventually drifted back to him through the haze of regret and fear.

"You haven't got a bloody chance!" At her retort, Harry threw up his arms in exasperation.

"Sarah, Harry," The Doctor put a hand on each of their shoulders and leant until his head hung between their faces. Both were at least a few inches shorter than him, "I have an idea. It's dangerous if not a little bit desperate, but it might work."

"Sounds familiar. What do we have to do, Doctor?" Harry asked expectantly.

"First of all, take this." The Doctor pulled off the thin, silver chain dangling from around his neck and gave it to Harry.

The TARDIS key.

"Take this," he said again, "and run. Run straight for the TARDIS. No matter what happens, you mustn't look back. You must not falter, you must not slow down under any circumstances. Do you both understand?"

Harry nodded, but Sarah was not so easily satisfied. She would never admit it, but the Doctor's tendency to rush headlong into danger drove her mad with fear. "What about you?"

The Doctor knew she could tell something was amiss with his whole plan. The girl was uncommonly shrewd, but she could sometimes be a tad too worrisome.

"I can look after myself, Sarah." The Doctor gave her one of his trademark, cheshire cat grins. "I know what I'm doing."

Sarah still wasn't convinced, but she gave a curt nod of her head anyway.

"Go, you two. Go!" The Doctor waved them away, urging them to run faster and faster.

Harry grabbed Sarah's hand and pulled her alongside him, and together they ran back into the driving sleet. Harry clasped the TARDIS key until his knuckles turned white, not daring to loosen his grip on the precious artifact for even a second.

After a time, Sarah heard angry shouting emanating from behind her, and the unmistakable whine of the sonic screwdriver. She had a sudden urge to wheel around and check on the Doctor, but his voice reverberated firmly and absolutely in her mind . . .

_Run straight for the TARDIS. No matter what happens, you mustn't look back_.

That's when Sarah heard the shot.

_You mustn't look back_.  
_I can look after myself, Sarah._

Her blood turned as cold as ice. She stopped dead in her tracks; Harry was forced to slow down or fall down at the sudden stop. His sea-blue eyes grew wide as he realized what it was that he, too, had heard.

"No . . ." Sarah murmured, and then she screamed, "NO!"

Harry snatched Sarah's wrist before she could bolt back the way they had come. She pulled with all of her might, trying to wrench herself free, but Harry would not be deterred.

"No, Sarah!" Harry shouted, almost pleadingly. His medical instinct to help the Doctor was strong, but his instinct to protect Sarah was stronger. "We'll be killed if we go back!"

"The Doctor may already be dead . . ."

Even as Sarah said it, the words turned her mouth cold and pasty. A sudden chill squeezed itself around her heart, and she thought she would pass out. "I have to help him, Harry. I _have_ to."

With a final twist of her arm, Harry's numb fingers slid away and Sarah careened down the avenue towards the fading sound of the laser shot. A thousand scenarios flashed through her mind, and Sarah knew what terminal danger awaited her should she be caught. She knew what would happen to both herself and Harry if they were to return and forsake the Doctor's last orders.

Little did she care.

The sleet abated just enough for Sarah to see a large, immobile figure twisted and lifeless in the snow. The cold grip tightened; Sarah could feel faint coming on, but she pushed through and sprinted towards the fallen mass.

It was the Doctor. His lifeblood stained the perfect tone of the snow around him, turning it red and steaming. The sonic screwdriver lay in an outstretched hand; the device was mutilated beyond repair. His scarf was missing, perhaps used as a last defense against the attackers. The lack of the outlandish accoutrement only further revealed the extent of the Doctor's injuries.

Sarah couldn't look. She ignored the hole in the Doctor's chest and knelt down beside him, desperately willing him to breath, to flicker his eyes. To smile that ridiculous smile. Anything!

"Oh, Doctor . . ." Sarah whispered, the tears freezing as they trailed down her face.

The Doctor's eyes slowly cracked open. He managed a weak smile, but it was a gruesome sight with his bloody mouth and bruised, broken face. His bright, intelligent eyes were now dull and lifeless, staring into the far-flung distance. They didn't register Sarah's presence.

When he finally did speak, he could have very well been talking to himself.

"I tried to distract them." The Doctor murmured, his sonorous voice barely a throaty whisper. "They homed in on the sonic screwdriver . . . didn't know they were armed with . . . neutrino weapons. Silly me."

Sarah took his head in her hands, bracing his neck against the pad of her shoulder. "Shush . . . I'm here, Doctor. You know what you have to do, right? You have to regenerate. Come on . . ."

The Doctor's eyes cleared slightly, and he seemed to notice her for the first time. He tried to sit up, but he cried out in pain and simply fell back onto Sarah's shoulder. The Doctor's face was twisted in agony, and he choked out, "Sarah, why are you here? Go! You have to get away from here!"

"I can't leave you. I can't!" Sarah didn't move. "You have to regenerate, Doctor. You're going to die if you don't."

The Doctor closed his eyes. Blindly, he reached for something with his spare hand. Sarah took it and held it tightly; his fingers locked with hers. "It's too late for that, Sarah."

"No, it's not! You've done it before, you just have to will it to happen . . ."

"You don't understand." The Doctor coughed something up. More blood, Sarah guessed. "The neutrino weapon's power discharge absorbed the lindos hormone in my body. Without it, I can't regenerate."

"This is the end, Sarah Jane. The last goodbye. And I do so hate goodbyes."

Sarah felt numb. She couldn't believe it. She _wouldn't_ believe it.

"Farewell, Sarah." The Doctor smiled one last time, one filled with warmth and heartache. "I'm so, so sorry."

His hand went limp. His blue eyes faded and clouded over, and the Doctor made his final journey to the place from whence he could never return.

He was gone.

Sarah sobbed, "Please, no . . . don't leave me alone, Doctor. Don't go where I can't follow . . ."

She welcomed tears. She pressed her forehead into the Doctor's forest of curls and cried until she was emptied of all but sorrow and disbelief and utter heartbreak. All the while, she cradled her dead friend in her arms.

A voice from behind summoned her back to reality, reaching through the pulsating waves of grief. "Sarah, please . . . We have to go."

It was Harry. His voice, too, was hoarse with restrained tears.

_Had he been standing there the whole time? Had he seen the whole thing?_

"We can't leave him. I _will_ _not_ leave him." Sarah said darkly, daring Harry to challenge her.

But he did challenge her. "Sarah, if we stay here and allow those monsters to kill us too, then the Doctor's sacrifice will be for nothing!"

He was right, of course. It made Sarah defiant and angry, but he was right, nevertheless. Harry had kept his head in a desperate situation, while Sarah had sat there 'blubbing', as the Doctor would have said. Sarah gently unwound her fingers from the Doctor's and closed his eyes. Then, brushing his curly bangs out of the way, she kissed him lightly on the forehead. It was her final blessing, and her final goodbye.

Sarah got up to join Harry. He held out a comforting hand and greeted her with the warmest, most reassuring smile he could muster. Sarah remembered what Harry had said to her, so long ago, on Space Station Nerva . . .

_Come on, old girl. The Doctor would have wanted you to be brave._

He was the only one she had now.

Sarah was reaching out for Harry's hand when a sound like an electrical generator started up from the shadows. Almost in slow motion, Sarah could see the blue beam of deadly light heading towards her. It was a discharge from an energy weapon, and Sarah Jane knew in that instant that she was about to take her place beside the Doctor, dead in the snow.

"_Sarah_!" Harry shoved her aside and took the full impact of the shot. His wiry body was wreathed in terminal blue light, and the haunting smell of burnt flesh soon filled the frosty air.

It was over in seconds. Harry, too, crumbled lifelessly to the blood-soaked snow, a gaping, fleshy hole in his abdomen. Sarah didn't have time to react. A cold, pitiless laugh echoed within her mind, driving her back with the sheer force of its evil and cruelty.

"Run, Sarah Jane Smith." She could feel its breath, its presence, like it was whispering intimately in her ear. "**_Run_**."

Sarah took one last look at her two fallen friends, the only people she had ever loved. Both had been shot down in cold blood, both had died in pain and terror. That realization filled Sarah Jane with a cold rage that scared her as well as invigorated her.

They would be avenged.

_You must not falter, you must not slow down under any circumstances._

Sarah bolted, running until she was swallowed by the snow and the shadows.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	2. Chapter 2: 'Till Death

___A Small Eternity Away . . ._

* * *

_Sweet mother of Rassilon, it was cold!_

_ His long, knobby fingers hesitantly tapped the surface again. Very cold. Almost icy. He could draw a smiley face in the frost accumulating on the plating. The smiley face soon morphed into a snowy version of the Mona Lisa. Some sort of operating table, perhaps? A doctor's gurney of sorts . . . complete with adjustable headrest, wheeled base, hand restraints . . . _

_ Oh dear . . . hand restraints . . ._

* * *

He was strapped down to a shiny, cold surface. He sincerely hoped it wasn't an operating table. Anything but an operating table. He did so hate scalpels and other nasty sharp objects. The doctors would be in for a shock once they opened him up, and he desperately needed half of the internal organs they would no doubt feel inclined to confiscate during their poking about . . . lindos organ, respiratory bypass system, bicardiovascular structure . . .

He let out sonorous chuckle that resounded deep in his chest. He was babbling again. He always seemed to do that when he was in danger. Which was often. He was babbling because he was secretly very, very frightened, babbling because it was the only thing that kept his nerve in check and prevented him from giving in to outright panic.

He thrust his right arm up. Then his left. The manacles binding his hands to the sides of the cold table held firm. An attempt to move his legs yielded the same result. His foggy, drugged mind slowly began to clear, but once his senses sharpened he immediately wished he could slip back into his dreams. They had been strange and confused, filled with an incredible amount of distress_ . . . _but he had felt as though he was about to discover something, as if a missing piece of a very important but very complex puzzle was about to fall into place.

_Ah, well. Just a dream._

Suddenly, his head bolted upright and his eyes flew open, cold reality setting in at last. A million questions flashed through his mind, questions that he knew he _should_ know the answer to but didn't.

He'd been drugged! A neural inhibiter had been used against his will! Of all the infernal cheek . . .!

What was going on?! Where was he?! Dear Rassilon, _who_ was he?!

The Doctor.

His name was the Doctor. Well, his important name was the Doctor at any rate.

He was a Time Lord. Albeit a rather disliked, abandoned, homeless Time Lord, but a Time Lord nevertheless!

"A Time Lord in a bit of trouble, as circumstance would have it." The Doctor murmured, surprising himself when his deep voice cracked mid-sentence.

He swallowed, and realized how parched and weak his throat was. His lips and tongue were dry and cold, much like the room he was locked in. He lifted his head and had a look at himself.

"Oh dear. . . I certainly _have_ had better days . . ."

He could have been mistaken for a famine victim. He had lost a significant amount of weight; his skin was pale and listless, as if all 6 feet and 4 inches of him had been stretched over a drying board and sun-bleached for a week. He'd been stripped down to his trousers and white, collared shirt. His maroon coat, burnt orange cravat, plaid vest, fedora, and wonderful scarf were all gone. Even his broken, pitted shoes were missing. The shoes Sarah was always telling him to get repaired . . .

_Sarah!_ The Doctor darted his bright blue gaze around the lifeless, cauterized room. Suddenly, his own predicament seemed rather immaterial. _Where was Sarah Jane?!_

"Hullo?" The Doctor called out. Again, the weakness of his once impressive elocution surprised him. "Hullo there! I seem to be in a bit of a pickle. You see, I'm strapped to a table and I've misplaced a human of mine . . ."

There was no reply. The Doctor's voice echoed hollowly within the room, eventually fading to lonely silence.

Not seeing any harm in it, the Doctor continued to talk. Even if there was nobody else present, he had always found himself to be a particularly fascinating person to listen to.

"You can't miss her!" He continued, "Her name is Sarah Jane Smith. Journalist, Londoner, 20th Century Earth. Dark-haired, smallish, slim, pretty . . . you get the point. Could you possibly keep an eye out for her? Dratted girl always seems to be wandering off . . ."

Silence. The Doctor was getting annoyed now. Why was it nobody listened to him when he had something important to say? The Doctor opened his mouth for another onslaught of self-occupational chitchat when an iron-hot pain raced through his chest, immediatly silencing him.

He tightened up, desperately trying to ease the agony rapidly spreading throughout and beyond his binary cardiovascular system.

"My hearts . . ." The Doctor moaned, gritting his teeth and biting his tongue. He tasted blood, hot and metallic. "Someone, help me! PLEASE!"

The absolute silence continued. The Doctor writhed in agony, his hearts racing each other and fibrillating in irregular patterns. He was having the Time Lord equivalent of a heart attack!

_That's not possible_, The Doctor thought through the haze of pain and growing panic, _Time Lords can't have dual heart attacks. It goes against every natural law of our physiology. _

_ Unless_ . . . _it had nothing to do with his physiology at all._

"If there's anyone out there, anyone who'll listen," the Doctor pleaded, "you have to help me!"

"I'm dying! If you don't let me go, I'm going to die within the next seventy-two hours!"

The Doctor's pleas went unanswered. He could feel unconsciousness creeping up on him. He knew it would be an undetermined amount of time before he woke up again, brought back to life as dazed as he'd been five minutes ago. Perhaps this had been going on for days, weeks, months even. Perhaps the Doctor had been subjected to this cycle of pain, darkness, and delirium until the world had simply forsaken him to his fate.

Oh, what had become of Sarah?

As oblivion closed in around him, the Doctor hoped that his friend was either home on earth or dead. Death would be preferable to this helplessness.

The Doctor slumped backwards, gone. His eyes closed and his breathing settled to a rhythm barely enough to sustain his life-force.

* * *

A figure had been standing beside the crippled, weak Time Lord the whole time. She had heard his cries, his pleas, and it pained her beyond comprehension to see him in a state of so much agony. But she could do nothing. She had sworn an oath on her honor and her life that she would not interfere with events that had to come to pass.

She stepped forward and gently brushed one of the Doctor's curls off of his face. She unclenched his fingers and lay his hands down on either side of his long body, until he finally relaxed. The tightness in his chest subsided, and the Time Lord began to dream again . . .

In his last hours, the only thing she could do was make him comfortable.

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	3. Chapter 3: Familiar Strangers

_Through the endless night . . ._

* * *

Sarah Jane pulled her blue cravat tighter, double knotting it and tucking it snugly into the top of her slim waistcoat. The wind had turned unbearably cold and bitter; it bit at her exposed skin with relentless ferocity. She had poked holes in the sleeves of her frock coat to stick her thumbs through, keeping her fingers free while covering the majority of her frostbitten hands. She desperately wished for a cloak or heavier jacket, not only to keep warm, but also to hide her identity from any wandering eyes.

They hadn't found her yet. In fact, there hadn't been any sign of them for hours.

Sarah shivered with cold and fear and apprehension, pulling her coat closer about her thin shoulders. Glancing anxiously from side to side, she continued her brisk walk through the darkened streets. She wasn't headed anywhere in particular. She'd already tried to find the TARDIS, but the ratty old Police Box had long since disappeared from its parking spot. She wasn't surprised, of course. If the murderers had taken such an immediate interest in the Doctor, it stood to reason that they'd also taken an interest in his time capsule. They were no doubt attempting to butcher the poor thing at this very moment.

At first, Sarah took comfort in the thought that the assassins would never be able to break into the TARDIS. No manner of force, natural or otherwise, could pry open those doors. According to the Doctor, a fair share of baddies had tried.

To Sarah's horror, she soon realized that the only means of entrance, the TARDIS key, lay unclaimed in Harry Sullivan's dead hand . . .

She choked back a sob. Oh, Harry! Sarah was wracked with another wave of grief and guilt as she remembered, again, how she'd simply left her friends laying dead in the snow. She'd run away, her own damn sense of self-preservation had robbed the Doctor and Harry of an honorable burial and an honorable death.

What was to become of them now?

Sarah steeled herself, pressing her fist into her palm to calm her fiery nerves. She knew the Doctor would never allow the happenings of the past to compromise any chance he had of saving lives in the present. Sarah also knew that the unknown assassins were an autocratic force in the community, but if she could leave the city, somehow, perhaps leave the entire godforsaken planet, she may be able to find some help.

Filled with a newfound sense of resolve, Sarah Jane pressed on through the seemingly endless night. Shooting the darkened, starless sky a disapproving glare, Sarah wondered how many hours had passed since the Doctor's death.

"Surely, it should be dawn by now?" She murmured to herself. She remembered the Doctor saying that this planet's daily rotation was significantly shorter than that of earth, yielding five-hour nights in winter. Sarah had been wondering aimlessly for three, perhaps four hours now . . .

She knew that the night was the darkest before the dawn, but what about if there was no dawn to look forward to?

She walked on. A largish, squatish building of a semi-Victorian style loomed out of the snowy fog ahead of her, breaking Sarah from her pessimistic reverie. Warm light spilled from the lanterns in the windows, bathing the street in a friendly carpet of gold. Over the door hung a placard depicting a nasty green monster being speared by a purple alien in armor.

The Warrior's Post: the local pub and general assembly area. It was also the favorite hangout of the few if any off-worlders bumming around the city.

Sarah knew that it would incredibly dangerous to go inside. A lone woman wandering into any pub at any ungodly hour of the night was not a smart idea to begin with. In Sarah's particular case, she didn't resemble the tall, pasty, grey-skinned natives in any sense. She would stick out like a sore thumb, and the unknown assassins would have surely distributed descriptions of her by now. Entry would be asking for trouble.

"On the other hand," Sarah pondered, tapping her index finger against her leg in nervous contemplation, "if I needed a way to get off the planet, what better way to achieve it then by moseying with a few of the space-weary pub goers."

Sarah mustered up her courage, and took a step towards the establishment. She turned up the collar of her frock coat to frame her face. She also tapped the top of the steel bar tucked into her balmorals, a little insurance she'd picked up along her walk. It was better to be on the safe side. The Doctor had always been averse to any form of violence, but Sarah had done away with any such qualms by this point.

To her surprise, the Warrior's Post was just short of filled to the brim. A plethora of the natives, as well as a small mishmash of aliens, crowded the bar area or talked quietly amongst themselves at their tables. A few sore souls were goaded into another game of cards with a smug-looking dealer. An old, grizzled male was strumming away at an instrument that looked like a cross between a ukelele and a lute. His heart wasn't into the song, and nobody was paying him much attention. Everyone was minding their drinks and their own business. Sarah wasn't noticed as she slunk in and took a seat at the table tucked into the furthest, darkest, most deserted corner.

Well, she believed she wasn't noticed.

According to Harry, the best way to sneak into somewhere unnoticed was to acknowledge that you had absolutely no right to be there, but project the impression of not giving the barkeep's arse about it.

Sarah also knew that Harry had never successfully snuck into anywhere before. She felt like a bull in a china shop as she sat alone in her corner and cast weary glances over the aliens assembled around her.

"What'll be, love?" A brusque barmaid sauntered over and gave Sarah a look of amusement. Sarah, taken entirely by surprise, babbled incoherently as she fumbled for the right thing to say,

"Uh . . . erm . . ."

The barmaid groaned, "Oh no, not another one. Listen, love, if you're blasted I ain't allowed to serve ya anymore. We don't need no trouble here."

Sarah continued to stutter. Somehow staring at a lusty, saurian barmaid who accusing her of being drunk was rather distracting.

"I do beg your lady's pardon." Out of nowhere, a youngish man plopped down next to Sarah and flashed the barmaid a winning smile, "My friend is a little tired. She'll have the classic Venusian vintage, year 34,320."

The barmaid, obviously taken with the man's charm, raised a sly eyebrow and strutted away. Sarah was too stunned to immediately react. She knew that any targeted fugitive with sense should have upped it and bolted if a stranger were to suddenly buy them a drink.

However, there was something about this man that interrupted Sarah's panic-driven plans of escape. It was like looking at an old photograph of a long-dead family member, seeing the resemblance but failing to put a name to the face.

He looked human, which was both suspicious and surprisingly welcome at the same time. He was tall and wiry, all points and angles under a midnight blue trench coat, starchy white shirt and black cravat. His chin-length hair was peroxide blond; Sarah suspected he'd bleached it. He was too young to have such white hair; he couldn't have been more than 40 years of age. He had icy blue eyes that sparkled with a formidable intelligence. When the light struck the irises, they glinted like broken glass. He was extremely handsome in an otherworldly, archaic sort of way.

He continued to gaze intently at Sarah, and the eyes held her attention. She simply couldn't look away.

"Are you going to tell me who you are?" Sarah tried to sound angry and imposing, but the words came out uncertain and shaky. She, for the umpteenth time that night, cursed her overwrought nerves.

"The more important matter at hand," the man took a nonchalant sip of his wine, "is why a young woman such as yourself is associating with the rather undesirable company present at this time of night. Or perhaps you, too, have noticed that the night ceases to abate as it should?"

Sarah fixed the stranger with a steely glare. She chose to ignore the comment about the night for the time being. Safer that way. "My business is my own, thanks all the same."

"Does that business include the deaths of your two friends, my dear?" The stranger's voice was sympathetic, almost sad.

_Okay, that's it._ Sarah backed out of her chair, muscles tense and ready to run. The stranger moved faster than she would have thought possible. He snatched her arm with his thin but strong fingers. Sarah made a grab for the steel pole wedged under the lip of her shoes, but the man stopped her with those piercing eyes.

He said gently, "Do try to avoid drawing even more attention to yourself. Please, sit down, Sarah Jane."

Sarah's head bolted up. Her name issuing from his lips triggered something buried deep within the confines of her strained and grief-addled mind. She remembered that deep, slightly lispy voice that carried with it the wisdom and knowledge of an incredibly old man as well as the gaiety of a young child.

"Oh my god . . ." Sarah felt tears brimming in her eyes. "This can't be real . . . but it is, isn't it?"

The man's smile could have lightened the dark side of the moon. It was the most beautiful thing Sarah had seen since the death of her two friends.

"Hello, Sarah Jane." The Doctor said.

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	4. Chapter 4: The Caretaker

___In the place where no hope remained . . . . . . . . . . ._

* * *

_The Doctor is a legend woven throughout history. He is the feared nemesis of the Dalek race, the scourge of the Cyberlegions, and the sworn enemy of the Sontaran military. He is the guardian of the past and the keeper of the future. Space is his backyard. Time is his plaything. His intellect is vast and complicated, brilliant beyond the comprehension of mere mortals. He is the Titan of the Universe, the Bringer of Truth, the Explorer of Eternity, the Oncoming Storm, and within the confines of his wisdom and knowledge, only one thought passed through his incredible mind . . .  
_

_Ow_

* * *

The Doctor grumbled and cursed incoherently under his breath as he, once again, fought the foggy shadows of sleep in an effort to regain consciousness. He felt as though his entire body had been pulled through a meat grinder . . . backwards. His arms were bruised and as limp as wet noodles; he couldn't even feel his legs through the pins and needles of nerve numbness. The Doctor didn't know why he was bruised and sore, but he didn't particularly want to find out, either. The answer would be, no doubt, as unpleasant as the rest of his predicament.

To his dismay, he was still lying on that cold operating table, in that empty, cauterized room. The situation had not changed. He felt weaker; his hearts thumped away slowly but erratically in his chest. It was a dull, achey sensation that carried with it serious implications.

Time was running out.

The Doctor raised his head and looked around, hoping for someone to show themselves. Again, he found himself totally alone. He made a move to get up, but his legs were still strapped down to the table. It was then when he realized something that sent a flutter of hope through his chest.

His hands were unbound! Someone had removed the manacles from his hands!

_So he was not entirely alone . . ._

He immediately launched forward and made a grab for the taught straps securing his legs to the gurney. His hands were cold and numb; his fingers fiddled awkwardly with the knots and buckles, but he was sure he could free himself. This would be child's play to the man who'd shown Harry Houdini a thing or two!

"Please, do not. The bonds are charged with 800,000 volts of electricity and will engage if tampered with."

Something not unlike a hand tentatively brushed the Doctor's shoulder. He turned, eyes bugging, to find only empty space standing beside him. Yet he had heard the voice. It was a uncommonly deep female voice, fluid and rich like dark chocolate. It was incredibly kind and tender, but so sad it struck a chord deep in the Doctor's hearts. It was a sadness fueled by untold millennium of bitter regret and utter helplessness. He couldn't be imagining something as powerful and poignant as that!

_Unless I am going mad, of course. That would explain a lot of things._

"You are not going mad."

There it was again! Directly off his right shoulder, a voice emanating from nothingness. A voice that seemed to be reading his thoughts . . .

"It's good to know I haven't lost my marbles quite yet." The Doctor admitted, telepathically, turning on his _avant-garde _charm. "I feel rather silly talking to thin air. Who are you, and why don't you want me to free myself?"

The voice, too, responded telepathically, "I am the Caretaker. My current position is located on a few dimensional planes above yours, I'm afraid. Your Time Lord extrasensory perception and dimensional sensitivity allows us to communicate telepathically, but you cannot see me in the physical sense. As to your bondage, I am under orders to keep you restrained. Otherwise, you would be tempted to escape."

"Too right I would! Who issued your orders, if I may ask?"

"My . . . superiors." At his exasperated snort, she added, "I am sorry, Doctor, but that is all I am permitted to tell you. I am taking a big enough risk as it is by releasing your hands."

"How kind of you." The Doctor muttered sarcastically, "Why am I here anyway? On most worlds, kidnapping and keeping one restrained against one's will is considered a very serious felony."

"Believe me, it is necessary. It is for your own good; I would not dream of causing you any wanton discomfort."

"Ha! Hollow words, if ever spoken. Have you the state of me lately?" The Doctor gestured to himself with an ostentatious sweep of his hands. For a moment, all charm and witticism vanished. "I'm weak. I'm _very_ hungry. I'm bruised, battered, and sore. My companion is missing. I'm in a most disagreeable mood. Oh, and did I happen to mention I'm dying?"

A sharp intake of breath reverberated within the Doctor's mind. When the Caretaker spoke again, her voiced with etched with profound grief,

"Yes. I know."

The deep emotion beneath her words hit the Doctor like a one-two. A perceivable ache started up in the back of his head.

"Well," the Doctor murmured, "if it makes you so upset, perhaps we can work together to do something about it."

"No, Doctor. Do not ask that of me."

"Why not? It seems like a perfectly reasonable request, considering the circumstances."

Silence. Either she had chosen to ignore him or she didn't trust herself to answer. That was the trouble with telepathy; the Doctor was the unwilling receiver of all the link partner's emotional turmoil, and she happened to have a hell of a lot of it. She simply didn't know how to satisfy his stream of inquiries while conforming with her own strict regulations.

"All right then, answer me this," the Doctor propped himself up on his elbows, projecting his mind outwards in an effort to detect the Caretaker's quantum vibrations on higher dimensional planes, and failing, "where is Sarah Jane Smith?"

"Your young companion is in the best of hands, Doctor. Of that, you can rest assured."

His brows knitted together and his voice got lower, more sinister. "As it happens, I am not reassured whatsoever. I'm dying, for reasons that continue to evade me, and you refuse help. You've kept me tied up, drugged, and all while in severe pain. Now, if Sarah is in any sort of similar predicament, I want to know where she is and what is being done about it."

The Caretaker sounded like she was about to say something, but hesitated and slipped back into silence. The Doctor could sense her thoughts swirling around like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, a jumbled mess inside both her head and his. Her mind was caught in a major conflict of uncertainty and doubt, as if her instincts and her logic were fighting one another. Whatever was happening, the Doctor knew that an important choice was about to be made.

Steeling herself against what better sense and years of service were telling her, the Caretaker answered, "Miss Smith is in a separate facility, not far from here. She is dying."

_I am so, so sorry._

The Doctor didn't know what to say. For the first time in his fourth incarnation, he couldn't think of a single snarky, clever, cynical, bothersome, obnoxious thing to say!

The Time Lord felt utterly powerless.

He clenched his fists and slipped back onto the cold gurney, staring blankly at the ceiling. When the next onslaught of pain erupted from the core of his hearts, he barely noticed. It was even more excruciating than the last attack, but the only sensation that registered was the knowledge that somewhere on this gelid, stale, insensitive world . . . Sarah was dying. And he was completely powerless to help her.

He felt numb with fear and frustration and rage; emotions that he usually kept well under control now boiled to the surface under the effect of whatever was happening to him. The disease wasn't only killing him, slowly and painfully, it was releasing his inhibitions as well, unraveling him like a half-stitched scarf.

The Caretaker's concerned analysis brought the wandering Doctor back to reality, "My instruments are registering major bicardiovascular fibrillations and tissue deterioration in your upper dermal systems. Doctor, to decelerate the effects I'm going to administer an anesthetic."

"_WHAT_?!" The Doctor exploded. His rage was extinguished very quickly, however. Wincing as another pain-stoked shudder ran through his body, he continued in a more subdued tone, "You can't. I have to find a cure . . . I have to help Sarah . . ."

"No!" The sternness and resolution in her voice caught the Doctor by surprise. "You cannot leave here. I will not allow it."

The Doctor spluttered in disbelief, "So you're just going to let me _die_?"

He was silenced by the sensation of ghostlike fingers grasping his arm. The Doctor desperately tried to free himself, but the Caretaker's specter-like strength transcending at least two dimensions was more than a match for the exhausted, emaciated Time Lord. He felt something being pressed into his skin: a pressure-administered hypodermic. Almost immediately, his mind began to cloud over. The hammering in his chest wasn't helping matters, for his own physiology was shutting down to relieve the pain and prevent any major damage to his bicardiovascular system.

The Doctor knew, though, that the efforts of both the Caretaker and his own body were only delaying the inevitable. Whether it be now or later, he was going to die.

He _had_ to find a cure! He _HAD_ to!

Through the dual waves of pain and mounting unconsciousness, the Doctor addressed the Caretaker. His voice was hard and cold. There was very little kindness or empathy left in it,

"You say you're a caretaker, that you take care of people. You're nothing more than a mindless, unfeeling automaton, following orders from people who couldn't care less about myself or for Sarah. You don't think for yourself, you don't act for yourself. Your own name is a _lie_. Your very purpose is a lie . . ."

With that, the Doctor slumped and passed out. Though his hearts were steadying, his skin was beginning to reveal fresh sets of bruising. Even his complexion looked wanner and pastier from the ten minutes he'd been conscious.

The Caretaker was desperately holding back tears. This shouldn't be happening! She'd taken care of thousands of patients in their final hours and never had her emotional indifference broken in the slightest. She'd always carried out her job dutifully and obediently, never once faltering from the instructions she'd been given. For she knew that if she wavered from her duty in even the slightest, her own life was forfeit.

So why was she showing emotional distress over a dying man she had never met before and knew nothing about?

The Caretaker mulled over the Doctor's final words, the bitterness and the anger,

_Your very purpose is a lie._

It was a cruel and devastating thing to say. But as the Caretaker packed her equipment and regarded the fuzzy-haired, hawk-nosed man sleeping a few feet and many dimensions away from her, she couldn't help but wonder how much of it was true . . .

And what she was going to do about it.

* * *

To Be Continued...


	5. Chapter 5: Sarah's Ghost

_Where the darkness is gathering . . ._

* * *

It was the Doctor! _Her_ Doctor! His countenance was totally different, but he claimed to be the same Doctor John Smith she'd met during the UNIT lockdown two years ago! Sarah could only gape at the impossible man sitting across the table from her. _He_, on the other hand, was retying his silk cravat and looking extremely pleased with himself, soaking in Sarah's amazement.

She spluttered, "How can you possibly be the Doctor?!"

"Is it really that difficult to believe, Sarah?" He replied with a pointed question of his own.

"Well, I'm not too sure. I don't know what to believe anymore. Nevertheless, I'm still a journalist; it's my job to ask questions." Sarah conceded, "But you're nothing like the man I used to know! Either of him! I mean, you're . . ."

Sarah's vocabulary was quite extensive. She grappled with dozens of powerful words to describe her miraculous face-to-face encounter with this ghost from the past. A momentous occasion called for a momentous adjective . . .

"Younger."

The Doctor glared at her and huffed, "Thank you very much. I don't know whether to feel flattered or insulted."

"Oh, come on. You can hardly deny it! Let's face it, Doctor, you weren't much of a spring chicken when I met you two years ago."

An incomprehensible, pouty grumble was his only response. Sarah thought it wise to continue, in an effort to cheer her old friend up,

"Well, you look great now!"

"You think so?" The Doctor smiled and looked himself over, his incorrigible vanity overpowering his mocked indignation.

Sarah continued to stoke the man's already over-bloated ego. It felt like old times. "You're certainly more . . . ah . . . aesthetically pleasing than the most current model I'm stuck with. _Was_ stuck with."

Sarah's memory flashed back to boggling eyes, tombstone teeth, and crazy curly hair, to that impossible man that was just this side of completely crackers. She stifled a tear, and cast her damp eyes down at her hands. The Doctor, ever the gentleman, reached over and gave them a squeeze.

"He's dead."

"Yes." Sarah muttered quietly. The murders still seemed surreal, like half-remembered dreams. They hadn't entirely 'clicked' yet.

"You obviously already know." Sarah enquired, "Can Time Lords tell when a future 'you' dies or something? Did someone walk over your grave?"

"Well, I can't be sure I would be here in the first place if it _hadn't_ happened."

"Come again?"

He ran a contemplative finger under his chin, emulating an age-old habit. "I don't know how I'm here, Sarah, and I don't know why. I don't even know _who_ I am, to be perfectly honest. I have no recollection or precognition of personas beyond my own, yet I seem to have acquired features that don't match the physiognomy of my third incarnation, the _'me'_ me. As you so whimsically put, I look much younger than I should. My eyes are a different color. Even aspects of my personality have changed."

Sarah was curious despite herself. "What are you, then? Some sort of mishmash of both 'Doctors'? You've got the overall appearance of your third self, but the youth and some of the temperament of your fourth self."

"An in-between, more like it. A being that exists at the midpoint of regeneration." The Doctor rolled the words thoughtfully over his tongue, "'In-between'. It has a nice ring to it . . ."

Sighing at her companion's distraction, Sarah ran her finger around the rim of her glass; the damp pad of her skin made a faint _zeeeeeeeing_ as it thumbed the thin surface. She was reminded of the Glass Armonica, an invention of Benjamin Franklin: such beauty out of such brittleness.

"What do I do now, Doctor?" Sarah wondered.

She didn't know she had spoken aloud until he answered through half a mouthful of Venusian wine, "Why are you asking me?"

"That's normally how it works, isn't it?"

"Touché." Acknowledged the Doctor. He pushed his empty chalice to the end of the table. "First and foremost, you are a journalist, are you not?"

"Don't be daft, of course I am! I said that literally five minutes ago . . ."

The Doctor interrupted, "Then it is my sad duty to point out the blatantly obvious details which your journalistic senses have failed to notice."

Sarah shot him a dirty look. "Is this _your_ kind of blatantly obvious or _my_ kind of blatantly obvious?"

"No, my dear, this is the _turn-around-because-all-of-our-fellow-patrons-have-just-disappeared_ kind of blatantly obvious."

"Okay, Doctor, I may not be up to speed with what's going on in your head 98% of the time, but I'm hardly _that_ thick!"

Then again, the tavern had become unusually _quiet_ . . .

Sarah, turning around more out of her own curiosity than for the Doctor's satisfaction, was flabbergasted to find that everyone had vanished.

Every man and woman that had been drinking, talking, smoking, and playing cards had disappeared. Even the bartender was missing.

She admitted her short falling, "All right, fine. Doctor 1, Sarah Nil. This is all kinds of odd."

"And many more kinds of sinister." The Doctor finished. He pushed his wooden chair out from underneath the table and gathered his blue coat around his shoulders. "Let's get out of here, Sarah."

"Fine by me. This silence is giving me the creeps."

Sarah and the Doctor collected their few things, threw on their cloaks, and went out through the front door. There was no sign of dawn on the horizon, much to Sarah's dismay, and the snow was still falling steadily. Despite the weather, the Doctor could find no boot tracks in the slushy street.

"How do thirty-odd people simultaneously vamoose and not leave a single footprint?" Wondered Sarah.

"Good question. I wish I knew the answer."

The Doctor cast his steely gaze over the street and adjacent buildings, eyeing up the dark edifices packed together like sardines in a tin. "Something very strange is going on here, Sarah Jane."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"Don't be snide. It's not just the death of my future incarnation or the amalgamated form I've taken. It's this entire city. It's this entire world: the abnormally long night, the unceasing snowstorm, the missing people. Something in all of it just isn't ringing true."

"Sarah," the Doctor looked down his beaked nose at her, "who were the people that killed your friends? Describe them."

She cast her mind back. "It was a group of people."

"What sort of group? Large, small, alien, native? What?"

"I can't remember." Sarah couldn't believe it. How could she not remember? "I know they wanted the Doctor, and I know they were evil. It's incredibly inconvenient, I know, but I can't seem to recall any more of the details."

"I can't say I'm surprised."  
"What? You're not surprised that I forgot something as gob-smackingly important as the identities of my friends' murderers? Gee, thanks. Glad to see that your confidence in me hasn't wavered a degree, Doctor."

"No no no no. I'm not surprised that you can't remember them because I doubt they ever existed in the first place."

"They killed the Doctor! Of course they bloody well existed!" fumed Sarah.

"I don't think so. Something killed my future self and that Sullivan chap, but I don't think it was a group of common street thugs, or even an organized criminal network. I think we're dealing with something much, much more abstract, and much, much more dangerous. We have to take into account that . . ."

_Little Sarah Jane, is running out of time,_

_ Little Sarah Jane, for soon you shall be mine,_

"Did you say something?" Sarah glanced cautiously at the Doctor.

He looked annoyed, and irritatingly patronizing. "Do listen carefully, Sarah. As I was saying, the evidence put before us suggests that . . ."

_Little Sarah Jane, is playing dice with death,_

_ Little Sarah Jane, for soon you shall breathe your last breath,_

"Stop that, Doctor!" Sarah begged, "Please, stop."

"I'm not doing anything!"

"Stop that dratted poetry! It's creepy and entirely _not_ funny!"

The Doctor arched one of his snowy eyebrows. "_Poetry_? Sarah, what in blazes are you going on about?"

"Someone's singing poetry." Sarah insisted, knowing that she probably sounded completely mental, "You start talking, and then you relapse into some very perturbing rhyme scheme."

The Doctor looked a mite concerned. "Sarah, I'm not singing poetry. I was never singing poetry."

"I know what I heard! If it wasn't you, then who was it?"

_Little Sarah Jane, I am whispering in your ear,_

_ Little Sarah Jane, I am right behind you, my dear,_

Sarah whipped around and glared at the empty air surrounding her. She could feel the frosty wind caressing her face, but to her fried nerves it felt more like the brush of a ghostly hand.

The riddling voice was the same one that had spoken in her mind right after the death of the Doctor and Harry. He had told her to run, and she hadn't listened.

Now he was coming for her.

Sarah inadvertently whimpered in fright, biting her tongue against a scream rising from the pit of her stomach.

"Where's my mummy?"

The scream found its way out. Sarah turned around, half expecting to come face-to-face with some gargantuan freak of nature hell-bent on killing her. Instead, she found herself gazing down at a frightened, cold little girl in a public school uniform.

"Where's my mummy?" The girl asked again, biting her fist as she wept.

Sarah's eyes widened in utter bewilderment. Where on earth had this kid come from? She looked human and entirely out-of-place in the silent, snowy city.

"I haven't seen your mum." Sarah replied cautiously, thinking that this child might be the daughter of one of the missing villagers, perhaps one of the spacefarers that had been in the pub. "Are you lost? Where are your parents?"

"Mummy and Daddy didn't come home today." The little bobbed brunette sobbed, "I came home from school and they were gone."

Something deep in Sarah's heart broke at the site of the little girl's tears. She hated it when children cried.

"When did you last see Mummy and Daddy?" Sarah questioned gently.

"Before school." The girl looked up with liquid hazel eyes. Sarah's heart skipped a beat and her skin prickled as the girl added, "Aunty Lavinia said something bad happened. But she's lying; Mummy and Daddy _always_ come home. They wouldn't leave me."

Sarah felt tears brimming. She clasped her hands to her mouth and uttered, "Oh my God . . . I've gone mad. I've gone completely batty . . ."

The girl's face twisted into one of rage, a horrible emotion for one so young. She continued to shed frightened, bitter tears. "Where are my Mummy and Daddy?"

Sarah was crying too. "They're dead. They died in a car accident, a long time ago."

"You're lying! They wouldn't leave me! YOU'RE LYING!"

"Mum . . . Dad . . ." Sarah could feel the girl's pain; it was as fresh as it had been the day she had learned of her parents' car accident, the day they had never come home. "I'm so, so sorry."

"No, you're not! You hate me! You want me to be sad!"

"No! They're gone! Dear God, they're gone!" Sarah dropped to her knees and sobbed, as much grief-stricken as her ghost looming above her. "Please, forgive me. Please . . ."

"_Sarah_ . . ."

"I'm so sorry."

"_Sarah_ . . ."

"Please, forgive me."

"_**SARAH**_!"

* * *

She snapped her gaze up to find the Doctor shouting in her face, his face taught with panic.

There was no little girl. There was no voice in her head. There was only the unbroken snow, the empty buildings, and the very worried Time Lord.

"Sarah, who were you talking to? Why are you crying?" He enquired with the utmost care and concern.

"The little girl! That was me, twenty years ago! She was standing right there . . ." Sarah's voice drifted off as she realized how silly it sounded.

"Sarah Jane," the Doctor put his large hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes, "there was never anybody here except you and me."

"You were screaming at thin air."

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	6. Chapter 6: Sanatorium

_In the hospital at the end of the universe . . . _

* * *

_You, sir, are a nitwit!_

_It's the sound of this planet screaming out it's rage!_

_Liz, what's with that ridiculous get-up?_

_Then you won't feel the bullets when we shoot you._

_You have to stop the drill!  
_

_Stop!_

_STOP!_

_**STOP!**  
_

* * *

He woke to the sensation of his gut being wrenched apart and his skin burning with hellfire. Sweat was pouring down his brow in torrents, partly from fever, mostly from fear. The terror eventually abated, once the Doctor convinced himself he was no longer running for his life from shrieking abominations that had once been people. A scream had woken him; the Doctor was fairly surprised to find that it was his own. His terror had freed him from the grasps of his drug-induced coma, and from his nightmares. He had been dreaming, dreaming of fire and death and Elizabeth Shaw . . .

The Doctor blinked the sleep out of his eyes and sat up so quickly he gave himself a splitting headache. It only added to the throbbing soreness that seemed to run right down his spine and extend to the tips of his fingers and toes, encompassing every nuance of his body. His two hearts were like searing coals kindling in his chest. The pain was constant now, and excruciating.

Using a form of biofeedback taught to him by Mae Jemison, the Doctor blocked out enough of the pain to concentrate on his surroundings. Once he got his bearings and banished the grogginess from his mind, two things struck him immediatly: one, he was still trapped in the cold, insensitive hospital ward. Two, but more importantly, he had been freed from his bonds. His jailer had had a change of heart.

_Perhaps there is hope for me, yet._

"Welcome back, Doctor."

The new, non-telepathic voice belonged to the Caretaker.

This time, the Time Lord could _see_ her.

If the Doctor were one to notice details beyond the purely scientific, he would go as far as to say that the Caretaker was the most beautiful creature he had ever clapped eyes on. She was a tall, lithe humanoid, with long limbs topped by triappendaged hands and feet. Her skin was the color of blue midnight, studded with luminous speckles that shone like stars. Her Faux-Hawk hair looked like frozen quicksilver. Her huge eyes, as shiny and featureless as unminted coins, gazed beyond the Doctor and into the far distance. She was clothed in a flowing black cloak accented by a girdle of violet. When the fabric caught the light, it shimmered like oil on water.

The Caretaker extended a long-fingered hand and tentatively touched the side of the Doctor's face, as if to affirm who it was who lay before her.

"Are you blind?" asked the Time Lord gently, his anger at her past antics melting away.

The Caretaker smiled, revealing parallel sets of tiny, perfectly straight teeth. When she spoke, her voice seemed to resonate from deep in her throat, "I cannot identify individual aspects of the visual spectrum, but I can, as you put, 'see'. Because I exist on higher dimensional planes, I am especially perceptive to the quantum vibrations given off by any living thing when in contact with the closed subatomic oscillations of their relative space-time continuum. That is a very simple explanation of an idea that would take many weeks to explain, even to you."

The Doctor, too preoccupied to be insulted, shot a nervous glance at the Caretaker's wandering hand. It was causing the skin of his cheek to prickle. "If you can see me, then why are you touching me?"

"You do not like it? If so, I humbly apologize and request your pardon . . ."

The Doctor flushed with embarrassment, and added quickly, "Oh, no no no. I'm just curious, you see."

The Caretaker let out a sigh that sounded suspiciously like a "B" on a bass clarinet. She murmured softly, "In any case, it was inappropriate of me, Doctor. You must understand . . . I have never touched anyone before."

The Doctor found that hard to believe. His current incarnation wasn't exactly the poster boy of sensitivity, but even he had held a few hands during his life. "How old are you, Caretaker?"

She chuckled, "Old enough to make the Time Lords look like a group of dribbling toddlers who have grown too big for their cribs. Old enough to have seen mighty empires rise and fall as if they were nought but sand castles caught in the tide. The years are so numerous that there does not exist a quantitative value to express them."

"And in that time, you have never touched anyone? A hug? A handshake? A congratulatory pat-on-the-back?"

"No." She pulled her hand back, suddenly uncomfortable, and rested it in the pocket of her long black cloak. "It is an abominable curse, one we purposely brought upon ourselves, and one most of my people take great pride in."  
"And who are your people?"  
"The Eternals."

The Doctor gave a knowing nod. "Thought as much. Miserable bunch, if you don't mind my saying."

A smile. "I feel no offense, for I have often felt the same way."

"You don't look like any Eternal I've met."

"That is because most of them choose to appear human when visiting N-Space. I, on the other hand, have chosen to appear as I see myself in my mind's eye."

"Your mind's eye has admirable taste."

The Caretaker's deep navy cheeks blushed a lovely shade of cyan.

"Tell me," the Time Lord asked, jumping subjects, "how does a member of an entirely omnipotent race with little or no concern for ephemeral entities come to be taking care of me and my companion?"

The Caretaker spread out her arms, which were almost as long as she was tall, and gestured to the cold hospital room that had served as the Doctor's prison. "This is the Sanatorium."

The was a long, awkward silence, unbroken except for the unhealthy, excited thumbing of the Doctor's hearts. He cleared his throat self-consciously. "Erm . . . I peg your pardon if I'm being rude, but was that supposed to mean anything to me?"

The Caretaker looked slightly hurt. Her hairless brows scrunched up in discontent. "The Sanatorium," she clarified, "is the most advanced hospital in the universe."

"Really?" The Doctor was thoroughly intrigued. "It's funny I've never heard of it. I'm usually well-versed in that sort of thing."

"That is likely due to the fact that this is a hospital founded, kept, and overseen by Eternals, and only Eternals. It exists a few nanoseconds out of sync with the rest of N-Space. Additionally, this is a hospital and care facility for the dying. The secrets of its existence are lost with the dead."

"Yeeeeeeeeees, very charming." He murmured dryly, "And on that note . . ."

The Doctor's already wide eyes bugged dangerously out of his skull. His locked gazes with the Caretaker, his striking blue reflecting perfectly in her moonlit silver. "I am going to find Sarah and do everything in my power to help her. I would appreciate your help; otherwise, do kindly stay out of my way."

The Caretaker nodded knowingly. "I have thought much on your last words to me, Time Lord. There comes a time when all people must question their place and purpose in this life. For a being whose life is infinite, with that time of reckoning comes a time of great change, for I am too old, Doctor, to continue to abide by rules that state that people must die, and yet remain behind to reckon with a conscience. I have no wish to see you or your friend suffer because of my decadent arrogance. So, Doctor, please follow me. I will take you to Sarah."

"Thank you, Caretaker. Thank you."

The Doctor swung his legs hesitantly over the gurney's edge. Immediatly, he was wracked by waves of pins and needles as his numb limbs were thrust back into use. Flexing his fingers and toes gingerly, the Doctor hoisted himself into a standing position and took a step further into the room.

Again, he was startled by how weak and infirm his body had become. Even when feeling had been restored to his legs, the Doctor nearly collapsed from utter exhaustion. The simplest of motor functions felt like marathon-level exertion. He was soon drenched in perspiration and wheezing laboriously despite his respiratory bypass system. The Caretaker offered to take his arm, but the Doctor shrugged her off in a fit of hubris, choosing instead to follow her lead as she guided him to the adjacent room.

It was sectioned off by a semi-opaque force-field grid that could be turned on or off with the use of a specialized blue keycard, which the Caretaker swiped patiently over a pulsating sensor pad. Once she and the Doctor were decontaminated by a sweeping beam of benign radiation, they entered the bracingly cold ward beyond.

"Oh no," murmured the Doctor, despair clutching at his hearts as his gaze befell the sole occupant of the room, "oh, Sarah."

Sarah Jane Smith was unconscious, barely breathing, spread out on her gurney like a slab of meat left out for the flies. Her shoulder-length brown hair was dry, wispy, and unkempt, like unlashed stalks of hay. The skin of her pale face was stretched thin over cheekbones that had suddenly become too prominent. The healthy, energetic glow that had once permeated the Doctor's companion was long gone. There was little life left in Sarah Jane Smith.

"I did not bother to restrain her." The Caretaker said thickly, "She cannot summon the energy needed to even open her eyes, never mind escape."

The Doctor enclosed one of Sarah's tiny hands in his own, much larger ones. They were very stiff, and very cold.

"Caretaker," the Doctor never took his eyes off Sarah, "right from the start, tell me everything. Your information may be the only thing that can save her now."

So the Caretaker began her tale.

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	7. Chapter 7: Creature in the Dark

**Sorry guys, this part is a little scary**

_In the dark of Sarah's nightmares . . . _

* * *

They had been walking in silence for so long, that when the Doctor spoke again, he nearly gave Sarah a coronary.

"How are you, Sarah? How is your life?" The Doctor asked the out-of-the-blue questions quite sincerely.

After she had gotten her heart rate back down to a reasonable level, Sarah answered cynically, not bothering to hide the scathing sarcasm, "Oh, brilliant. It's every girl's lucky day when she starts hallucinating about ghosts and poetic psychopaths, on top of getting to see her two best friends murdered in cold blood. What more could I ask for?"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes, and clucked his tongue in impatience. "I wasn't asking about your life _right now_, Sarah Jane. I was asking about your life in general. What happened to you after I regenerated?"

Sarah cocked her head in puzzlement. Of course, it was a legitimate question, but it seemed oddly out-of-character for the Doctor. Not to mention off topic, considering the circumstances! He had never really asked about her personal life before, not in any of his incarnations: third or fourth. She supposed the third and a half? incarnation could be an exception.

"My life's been fine, I suppose." She twiddled with her left coattail, thinking of what to say. "Traveling a lot, obviously. Had to quit the UNIT business and put the journalism thing on hold. Not much of my stuff was getting published, anyway. I'd decided to write-up some of our past adventures for a Pseudo-Science magazine based in London. The _Metropolitan_ wouldn't take them, and, as I soon found out through a plethora of angry rejection letters, neither would the Pseudo mag. On top of the Brigadier's bloody "Official Secrets" baloney and the sheer unbelievability of the stories, nobody would publish for fear of their own credibility!"

The Doctor laughed for the first time the entire evening. It was a hearty, rich sound that made Sarah's sullen frown crack into a warm smile. It sounded like _her_ Doctor's laugh: deep, sonorous, and immediatly comforting.

"You're still traveling with me, then."

"Of course I am!" She looked at him curiously. "Why wouldn't I be?"

The Doctor appeared sheepish. "I thought, well . . . I'd have thought you would go your own separate way, after I'd regenerated. I'd have thought you would get on with your life."

"You weren't gone, though. Sure, you changed your face, but you were still alive, you were still the Doctor, and you needed my help and Harry's to recover properly."

"Harry? Harry Sullivan? Is he your friend who . . .?"

"Died?" Sarah nodded grimly. "Harry Sullivan was the CMO of the Brigadier's squadron. He traveled with us. He was a bit klutzy and insufferably chauvinistic at times, but Harry was a good man at heart. He was a good friend."

The Doctor gave his companion a warm, sympathetic smile, but she could tell his mind was elsewhere.

"Doctor, what's really troubling you?"

"Did you miss me, Sarah?" He blurted out, "After I left, did you miss me?"

Sarah looked up at him. The man standing before her was an anomaly, an impossibility. He was a combination of both of her Doctors, the gentlemanly grace and poise along with the intelligence, bohemianism, and overwhelming character. But within the confusion, within the impossibility, a deep, lingering echo of her first Doctor remained.

"Yes." She admitted, "I did miss you, when you left. I was devastated at first."

His face fell. "Only at first?"

"Doctor, I cared about you more than you could ever imagine. I really _was_ devastated. But your new incarnation was still you. I grew to care about him as well. The past year I've spent traveling with him and Harry has been one of the happiest of my life."

He scowled, and muttered under his breath, "He must have been terrific."

Sarah, distracted by memories, failed to catch the bitterness. "He was. Oh granted, he was irritatingly rude and brash at times. He was demeaning and insulting to both Harry and me. When he grew angry, he was frightening. Terrifying, in fact. But he could also be very gentle. And he was so funny! God, he made me laugh. You should have seen the state of him! Iron wool hair, buggy eyes, too many teeth, and a clothing assortment that could have come straight from the Red Cross charity bin!"

Much to Sarah's annoyance, the Doctor looked horrified. He unconsciously latched his hands onto the lapels of his impeccable, customized, expensive velvet coat. "I became _that_, and you _approved_ of him? Your standards are dropping, Sarah."

Her face bloomed red with rage. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

"Jo liked the scruffy Welshmen who was just a quid above destitute, and now _you_ like the maddening charity case! Nobody remembers the Dandy. Nobody remembers the old exile. I honestly thought you would be the exception, Sarah."

"You've got to be bloody kidding me!" Sarah, grinding her fingernails into her palms, seethed, "You have no right to be insulting your fourth incarnation, or pitying your third incarnation, because you're not even him! You're an amalgamation of _both_ Doctors! Your fourth body is as much a part of you as your third body!"

"Do me a favor, my girl." He snapped, "Don't insult me."

"You know what, I was wrong. You haven't changed a bit." Sarah's throat was twisting into knots. She couldn't keep her voice from cracking, "You're so self-centered and arrogant that you can't even come to terms with your own identity. Instead of accepting your short-fallings, you just pin them all on me. Like you always did. Like you always will do."

Sarah stormed off, averting her gaze to keep the Doctor from seeing the bitter tears streaming down her face. After what she'd been through, after what she'd seen, she didn't deserve this.

"Sarah? Sarah! Don't run off!"

"I'm not a child!" She screamed, horrified at how whiny she sounded, "Despite what both of your incarnations seemed to think, I don't need your help, Doctor!"

There was no rebuttal. There was only silence. Cold, lingering silence that chilled Sarah to the bone. The moments passed, and her progress was not impeded by a steadying hand or a harsh word. As much as she tried to tell herself otherwise, Sarah found the Doctor's lack of concern . . . frightening. He would never allow her to actually walk away . . . would he? Surely he cared too much.

"Doctor?" Sarah stopped in her tracks and turned around to find . . . nothing.

There was only a brick wall, a solid, frost-encrusted archetype, blocking the street that had lain there not a moment ago. Sarah darted her gaze in myriad directions, to find that she had enclosed herself in some sort of courtyard or town square. Except that this town square was not bordered by pillars or frozen fountains or groomed green lawns covered in snow. It was blocked by four solid, sheer, 10 meter heigh brick walls.

"How on earth did I manage to get myself in here after 60 seconds of walking? I really am a piece of work." Sarah tried to sound lighthearted and irritated with herself, but the effort failed once she realized the implications of her predicament.

She was trapped. There was absolutely no way out.

"Oh no." The words seemed to freeze and linger in the bitter air.

"Oh yes, Sarah Jane! Oh _yes_!" A voice cackled from the depths of the inky gloom.

Every hair on Sarah's head stood up on end. Her blood all but froze in her veins and her skin ran rugged with gooseflesh. Ever so slowly, she peered over her left shoulder . . .

Sarah screamed.

A Creature was standing there, hunched over with a balloon in one balled fist and a machete in the other. The Creature was clothed in severely flared, bumblebee-stripped trousers and a polka-dotted frock coat. The Creature's attire was complemented by a neon green bow-tie and red trainers five sizes too big. It's hair was puffed up into a garish afro of glaring yellow and red. It's face was plastered in chalky make-up, which glowed faintly in the near-complete darkness of the enclosed courtyard.

The Creature smiled. It's bulging gums were black and dripping with maroon globules of blood. It's teeth were huge, the size of cigarette lighters, and arranged in straight lines like picket fences.

"I'm here for you, Sarah Jane." It giggled in a high pitched voice, which screeched like fingernails over a blackboard. "I'm here to make you smile!"

Sarah's scream jammed in her throat as fear constricted it. Her breathing got shallow and labored, as if she were having an asthma attack. She couldn't move; sheer terror cemented her limbs and froze her to the spot. She could only whimper like a frightened animal as the Creature shambled forward, its horrifying grin slicing across its face. Sarah felt its fingers brush her coat, and very nearly passed out.

"I'm gonna tie you up like a present." The Creature began to unwind something from his pocket. "It's my birthday, Sarah Jane. We'll celebrate together!"

At first, she thought he was pulling out one of those long, colorful tassels performers procure from small pockets as a stage act. But as the Creature's skeletal hand emerged, it was soon very, very clear that what he held was no magical toy.

It was the Doctor's scarf.

It was unraveling, blackened, and stained with streaks of rich red blood, but it was undoubtedly the Doctor's beloved fashion accessory. It had been snatched from his dead body. This was the thing that had killed him.

"Isn't it pretty, Sarah Jane? Won't you look so lovely in it?"

Sarah couldn't budge. Try as she might, her muscles refused to respond even though her brain was screaming at her to run, to fight, to do anything to keep that ungodly horror from touching her.

She bit her tongue against panic as the scarf was slowly wound around her body, securing her arms fast to her sides and her legs tightly against one another. It ended at her neck, where the end tassels were tied like a bow around her throat. The Creature's fingers caressed the base of her neck and lingered there. They felt like icicles, wet and freezing to the touch. The Creature kept a firm grip on the trailing end of the scarf. Sarah couldn't possibly escape now.

The jagged, filthy machete blade was brought to bare against Sarah's side, underneath her ribcage. She managed to choke out a few words . . .

"Who . . . What . . ." She winced and relapsed into silence as the blade pierced the material of her jacket and waistcoat. She felt it carve a thin wound down her side. She felt the warm trickle of her own blood.

"I am your Fear, Sarah Jane Smith." It breathed in her ear and it, to her horror, sounded exactly like the voice that had spoken in her mind twice before, "I am here to make you smile."

The machete inched its way upward. The Creature made sure the blade brushed the cold flesh of Sarah's exposed skin. As she stood there, immobile, helpless, the Creature rested the point against the corner of Sarah's left eye.

"You have such sad eyes." It purred, "I don't think I like them. I will give you happy eyes. I will carve the fear out."

Sarah finally managed to release her constrained scream. Her lungs burst and her entire body reeled as the bloody blade cut itself into her face.

"Doctor, HELP ME!" Sarah shrieked, her plea echoing hollowly within her prison.

"He's not coming, Sarah Jane." The blade cut deeper, eliciting a round of anguished screams that split the icy air.

"The Doctor will never come."

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	8. Chapter 8: The Eternal's Tale

_In which the Eternal began her story . . . _

* * *

_The Sanatorium was my idea. _

_ For the past untold millennia, I had grown disillusioned with the way my people were developing. We had degenerated from a noble race, interested only in the balance of universal harmony, into stoic, power-hungry despots obsessed with self-gain. We were hollow, empty. I came to realize that an infinite existence consisting of nothing but aloof surveillance would lead to little more than further decay into anarchy. Our continued detachment from Ephemeral pleasures: emotion, companionship, laughter, love; could only bring us suffering. _

_ I went to our Elders with my concerns. They, too, foresaw a Time when the Eternals would be locked in a selfish battle in which many innocent Ephemerals would die. They wanted such conflict to be avoided, so they heard me out. I told them that I wished to form a learning center for the Eternals, an institute of sorts, where our kind could drop away our veneer of impassion and share in the emotions of our Ephemeral brothers. Only then, I reasoned, would the Eternals avoid the evolutionary cul-de-sac that was our inevitable future. We needed feeling in order to reach a higher level of psionic development. Our Enlightenment, I believed, lay in reconnecting with our emotions._

_ Unfortunately, the Elders were too set in their ways to completely disband the policy of emotional indifference. They believed that _**that**_ had been our ultimate evolutionary achievement: the absence of feeling, to form a perfectly logical, scientific way of thinking. In our home dimension, Doctor, in Eternity, we are nought but creatures of pure, mathematical thought._

_ The Elders were not completely averse to my idea, however. They still sought to prevent the hardships that were to come. Ephemerals are known for their redundant ability to cause conflict, so the Elders reasoned that observation of their emotional adaptions would help us to quiet the disputes amongst our own people. In conclusion, I was given the means necessary to construct my institute. It was called the Sanatorium, a word that simply means "Hospital"._

_ When I realized what my undertaking would entail on my behalf, it was already too late._

_ I constructed the facility within a small, unregistered asteroid floating aimlessly along the fringes of N-Space. I also placed it a nanosecond out of sync with the rest of the time continuum, so that no-one could detect it. Considering the given title of my institute, I thought that it would, in fact, serve as a hospital: a place where I and my chosen compatriots would care for Ephemerals and heal their wounds. To my horror, I found out that the Elders had reasoned that Ephemerals show the most observable emotion, that they reveal their true personalities, only as they lay dying. The Elders, in all of their heartless guile, had twisted my intentions. The Sanatorium was not to be a place of healing. It was to be a place of death._

_ Of course, I protested. I argued that I could not be expected to watch over dying creatures and not attempt to save their lives. The Elders scorned my open displays of passion, and threatened to disband me from Eternity if I disobeyed my directive. My options were this: to spend the rest of eternity recording the souls of innocents as they lay dying, or to be cast out from my home to wander as a lost brainwave in the darkness of N-Space, forever alone._

_ What choice did I have? I chose the former, and now I am bound to the Sanatorium as its Caretaker. I made my observations and reported to my superiors, the Elders of the Eternals. It was my duty to make the Ephemerals comfortable as they died, but under no circumstances intervene with their ultimate fate. I did this for many, many years, and each death ate away at a conscience most Eternals would deny possessing._

_ That is where you come in, Doctor. I was doing a routine sensor sweep of this galactic sector, on the first, second, third, and fourth dimensional planes, when I detected a Time/Space Vortex breach. I homed my sensors in on your time capsule, to find it spiraling out of temporal orbit. The soul of your TARDIS was in severe distress, and so I did the natural thing. Thinking it to be on the verge of death, I brought it here._

_ The capsule had barely materialized in the main ward when you stumbled out of the door. I was positioned on the sixth standard dimensional plane, so you could not see me, but I could see you. You were in dishevels; your clothes were burnt, your face and hands were blackened and scarred. You were carrying a girl. She was slipping in and out of consciousness. Her arms, which she kept hooked in a loop around your neck, were steadily weakening. You made it about two steps with your burden before you collapsed, too weak to continue. Before you lost consciousness for the first time, Doctor, you said two words. The anguish and pain in those words was enough to rock even the most stoic Eternal to the core. Those two words propelled me into action, drove me to disobey my directive, and led to me having this conversation with you now._

_ 'Help us'. _

_ You blacked out almost immediately afterwards._

_ I took your bodies to seperate cubicles, where I sought to determine the malady that plagued you both. I found nothing wrong with your bodies, but your minds were in utter disarray. Your neural pathways were crumbling beneath a psychic force more powerful than anything I had ever catalogued before. Your psionic energy readings were, and still are, more than 200% that of the humanoid norm, as if something were stimulating your nervous systems beyond extreme tolerance. And your bodies were responding accordingly; both of you grew progressively weaker and malnutritioned as your skeletal, muscular, and cardiovascular systems sought to combat something rooted in the core of your minds. Your hearts began to go into cardiac arrest, Doctor. Time Lords can only have heart attacks if their bodies are unable to correlate with the neurological activity of their brains. For the past five weeks . . . yes, five weeks . . . I have kept you under sedation to relieve the growing pain. I was there to watch you die. I was not there to watch you suffer._

_ It was then when you woke up, and changed my mind for me. You were right, Doctor. I had the means to save your life. That was worth the risk of one whose soul has grown too pained and too regretful to be satisfied with continued existence. I want you to go forth and save yourself and your young friend. Before I accept my fate, I want to witness one last miracle of the Ephemerals. I want to witness passion, determination, and love such as that you feel for your companion. I know she will live, because you will not allow her to die. So you see, I was right. Sarah _**is**_ in the best of hands._

_She has no idea how lucky she is._

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	9. Chapter 9: Harold Sullivan, MD

_In the real world . . ._

* * *

**BTW-This is the last chapter**_  
_

* * *

_A voice._

_ An impossible voice._

_ Breaking through, pulling her out, reaching past the haze of agony and abandonment and terror. _

_ Saving her._

_ Bringing her back . . ._

* * *

"_Oh, Sarah. What is going on now? Please, wake up._"

Her throat is parched and drier than an arid desert. Her screams have left her speechless. She can't see because her eyes are gone, cut out. All she sees is black, a deep shadow through which no light can permeate. Blind, so blind. She can never see again: never see the sky, never see the sun, never see the leaves turning on the trees during the autumn. She can never see the stars again.

"_Sarah. You can open your eyes. Come on, now._"

"Doctor?" She croaks, holding on to an impossible hope. But the voice is wrong. It's lighter and brusquer and more colloquial.

There is a light gust of wind, or perhaps it is a sigh, and the voice says again, "Sarah, open your eyes, please, and look at me."

The voice is kind, but commanding. Almost fed-up. Annoyed.

"My eyes are gone." She whispers, her words floating like the lyrics of a lost song, "He took my eyes out."

"Good gracious, what's she going on about this time?"

She definitely recognizes that voice. Cultured, female, elderly, somewhat pompous.

It couldn't be.

That was impossible.

Somewhere, buried deep in the tortured confines of her mind and body, a journalist stirs. A journalist whose mission it is to combat the impossible and to disprove the improbable. A journalist who refuses to accept the reality of the two Voices without concrete, irrefutable proof.

* * *

_It was the most difficult thing she had ever done, but slowly, ever so slowly, Sarah Jane Smith opened her eyes . . ._

* * *

"HARRY!" Sarah bolted upright and enveloped her old friend in a hug strong enough to snap ribs.

"Okay, okay, steady on, old girl." Harry patted Sarah's back somewhat awkwardly. His midsection was going numb under her grasp.

"Dr. Sullivan, I would appreciate it if you would refrain from referring to my niece as 'old girl'."

"Aunt Lavinia!" Sarah was so surprised, her heart skipped a few beats. Harry and her aunt. One was dead, the other was further away than Sarah could ever imagine. "What the hell is going on!?"

Harry Sullivan and Lavinia Smith shot each other a despairing look. Their silent exchange alone was enough to shock Sarah into a more composed, observant state.

She was sitting on a settee, the old, checked settee in the front room of Aunt Lavinia's home in Moreton Harwood, to be precise. She was wrapped, from head to foot, in a scratchy wool blanket that could have come from the loft of a horse barn. Despite it being uncomfortable, Sarah was grateful for it, for it was raining outside and there was a cold draft winding its way through the old house. As if to offset the cold, a steaming cup of tea rested invitingly on the coffee table. It looked very enticing and smelled even more so.

It could have been any typical, rainy afternoon in England.

Except that she knew it wasn't. Sarah was stranded, millions of miles and thousands of years away from the normality of Moreton Harwood.

So why was she there now? Where was the Creature? Where was the snow and the never-ending darkness? Where was the Doctor?

"What is going on?" Sarah asked again, voicing her thoughts aloud, "Where is the Doctor?"

Harry couldn't contain an exasperated sigh. Lavinia massaged her temples in consternation.

"Sarah, what is the last thing you remember?" Harry enquired, sitting next to Sarah on the settee and fixing her with a penetrating gaze that would have made the Doctor proud.

"My eyes . . ." She unconsciously brushed the corner of her left eye, where the jagged blade had lain, "The Creature was about to take my eyes out. I had been angry at the Doctor. I ran away, and got myself trapped. Trapped with the Creature. It looked like a clown, you know. I'm terrified of clowns. I was screaming, screaming so loud and so long because the pain was so terrible . . ."

Harry nodded sympathetically, though his expression was anything but commiserative. It was condescending, as if he were trying to communicate with a child.

He turned to Lavinia, and sadly announced, "She has regressed. The new treatment doesn't seem to have worked."

Sarah was at a loss. "What treatment! Harry, what the deuce is going on?"

"Her hallucinations are different," Aunt Lavinia continued without breaking form, completely ignoring the protests of her niece, "though, this 'Doctor' figure is continuing to crop up."

"Perhaps she's showing . . ."

"Harry, you're dead!" Sarah suddenly interrupted, close to tears. "I watched you die! You died saving me, on an alien world, long ago and far away from here. You can't be alive now! _You can't be_!"

Harry turned back to Sarah. For the first time, through his mask of professionalism, she could glimpse remnants of her old friend. "I never died, Sarah. I've never traveled with you, I've never fought monsters or battled aliens, I've never even left England. What you thought you saw were merely figments of your damaged imagination."

Sarah's mouth was agape. "Did I imagine your lifeless corpse, instead of mine, lying there dead in the snow? Did I imagine the Doctor's farewell, and the way he was trying to comfort me even though it was _him_ mangled and bleeding and close to death? Did I imagine my fear, my full-blown terror, of the nightmares that seemed to plague my every waking minute afterwards? Tell me I was imagining that! TELL ME!"

"You were, Sarah dear." Lavinia took the remaining spot on the settee. "Everything that you think has happened you over the past two years have simply been hallucinations, an aftermath of your accident."

"Accident? What're you on about?"

Harry let out another long sigh, "Don't you remember, Sarah? Two years ago, you infiltrated a military base to investigate the disappearances of some of their top scientists."

"UNIT. I know that! I impersonated Aunt Lavinia while she was away on a lecture tour!"

"No. The base was a standard issue Royal Air Force facility in Gloucester, specializing in the research of explosives. Lavinia was never invited; you snuck in on your own accord."

"But the Doctor caught me! He knew I wasn't Lavinia Smith because I was too young to match her credentials. I ran around UNIT HQ like I owned the place!"

Harry ignored her. "While you were in the facility, you stumbled upon the testing vault. You tried to handle some unstable canisters of nitroglycerine, which were ignited by the presence of your body heat. Half of the facility was destroyed. Luckily, the nightshift guards were having a coffee in the canteen, on the opposite end of the base, and escaped with only minor cuts and bruises. You, Sarah, were not so lucky. You suffered severe concussion and trauma to the frontal lobe of your brain. You were in a coma for six months. When you woke up, all of _this_ started."

Lavinia finished, "So you see, Sarah: UNIT, the Doctor, the TARDIS, this entire world that you have created are just mirages manifested by your injury. None of it is real."

"_You're_ real, Harry!" Sarah insisted, not wanting to believe any of it, "Surgeon-Lieutenant Harold Sullivan, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of the London-based United Nations Intelligence Taskforce!"

Harry let out a little chuckle. "I'm not the chief medical officer of anything. I'm a neurosurgeon, and a psychiatrist. _Your_ psychiatrist, Sarah, for the past two years."

"We like to think," Lavinia put in, "that Dr. Sullivan's presence in your fantasies indicate that we are succeeding in our rehabilitation efforts. But every time we try to bring you back to reality, every time you snap to and Dr. Sullivan reminds you of the accident, you relapse. You keep fighting us, my dear."

"I'm fighting you because you're lying!" She shouted in frustration and anger.

"Sarah, be reasonable." Her aunt counted each detail on her fingers, "A government-payed organization specializing in defending the earth against aliens, a police box that is actually a time machine, and a man who is hundreds of years old and can change his face on a whim. You used to be a journalist; don't you see how ridiculous it all sounds? How impossible?"

Sarah fist was balling the blanket into knots. Suddenly, she hated Harry and Aunt Lavinia and this entire setup. "UNIT, maybe. The TARDIS, perhaps. But you will never, _ever_ convince me that the Doctor isn't real. He is the realest person in my life, the realest person in the entire universe!"

"We've heard it all before, Sarah." Harry said, "As painful as it is to accept, the Doctor isn't real. He is a hallucination, only alive when you close your eyes and dream."

_He is a hallucination_.

_Only alive when you close your eyes and dream._

Realization seemed to dawn on Sarah like sunlight breaking through storm clouds. She felt as though a fog had been banished from her mind. She could see things with remarkable clarity of detail, and suddenly, she knew what she had to do.

"He's only alive when I close my eyes, then?" She asked pointedly.

Harry and Lavinia nodded, hope kindling in their eyes.

"You understand, Sarah." Harry said soothingly.

"Your world is just the fantasy of a shock victim." Lavinia cooed.

"So if I close my eyes, you two will go away, and the Doctor will come back? The _real_ world will come back?"

Harry's pupils narrowed until his eyes were just deep, sea-green pools. "This _is_ the real world, Sarah. You're confused; you don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh, but I think I do." Sarah couldn't help but smile. "I think you know I do. This is just another illusion, like everything else. I'm still standing cloth-eyed in the snowy streets of that dark planet, so far away, and the Doctor is probably fretting over me like a mother hen at this very moment. I close my eyes, this all disappears, and I wake up."

"Sarah, NO!" Lavinia squealed, "It's just like the last time! Stop her, Sullivan!"

Harry made a lunge for Sarah's face, but of course, she was too quick. Sarah shut her eyes, and the world around her vanished in a gust of cold air and the fading sound of raindrops.

She heard a voice. A lispy, deep voice that seemed to reverberate from every direction . . .

_Sarah, this is the Doctor. You did it, you broke the illusion, but you must keep your eyes _**shut**_. No matter what happens, no matter who or what you think you hear, you must not under any circumstances open your eyes. _**It's**_ here. _**It's**_ all around you, and _**It's**_ waiting for you to drop your guard._

So Sarah kept her eyes closed. She prepared herself, steeling her nerves against something unknown that still managed to terrify her.

As she waited, the darkness descended, and _It_ began to speak.

* * *

To Be Continued . . .

* * *

**Ha ha, got ya! You didn't really think I'd end it with 'And then she woke up', would you?**


	10. Chapter 10: A Decision

**Hey, look at that guys! This was the last chapter I had left to type, so now I can upload the ENTIRE STORY! Huzzah huzzah!**

_On the crossroads of destiny . . . (I am very quickly running out of these precursors)_

* * *

"So, let me get this straight: Sarah and I are dying because our nervous systems are being driven into overload."

"Yes."

"Because something has caused a neurological impulse imbalance in our brains, and is therefore effecting the physical aspects of our bodies."

"Yes."

"But you don't actually know _what_ is causing the neurological imbalance."

"Yes."

"Great." The Doctor grinned, and rubbed his hands together eagerly. "There's nothing physically the matter with us. Sarah and I are being killed by a malady with little more somatic existence than an abstract thought. And we haven't a clue how to combat it! Oh, I always did love a challenge!"

The Caretaker didn't share in his enthusiasm. "Doctor, if something is not done within the next 24 hours, both you and Miss Smith are going to die. I can hardly see how this warrants for excitement on your behalf."

"Oh, I'm terrified, Caretaker! More terrified than you can imagine! But how is worrying about the problem going to do anything towards solving said problem, eh?"

"Despite your overwhelming sense of optimism, Doctor, I still do not know what to do!" The Caretaker exclaimed in frustration, "I want to help you, but I cannot! How can I destroy an illness that has no physical presence?"

"You can't." The Doctor replied bluntly. "That's why I'm here. Time Lords are innately telepathic; I would be more sensitive to any sort of anomaly within my own mind. I may be able to find something."

"I, too, am telepathic. But I can detect nothing absolute, nothing that I can work with."

"Caretaker, the type of biofeedback probing that is required for a mental check of this sort is very Time Lord in nature."

The Doctor's hooded eyes closed. He took a single, deep breath, and his entire body went slack. Before he submerged into the depths of his own mind, he cracked one eye and gave the Caretaker a wink.

"One thing I should mention before I . . . ah . . . delve in." He said cheerfully, "If I _can_ detect something, it would indicate that whatever is in my mind and Sarah's is sentient, or has independent thought of its own. In which case, our little problem would be a wee bit more disconcerting."

The Caretaker's sense of reason sputtered and died. "Sentient!? How would that be possible?"

"Don't know! Let's find out, hmm?"

The Doctor shut his eyes and sighed. Ever so slowly, his breathing decreased until it seemed as though he were barely alive at all. His face got even paler than it already was, almost vampiric. The only detectable movement of his body was a minute twitch of the corner of his right eye.

The Doctor broke out of his reverie surprisingly quickly. He fixed the Caretaker with a look of chagrin and shook his head.

"There's nothing here."

She frowned, and asked, "Then what is causing your illness? What is causing your heart fibrillations and your general malnutrition?"

The Time Lord pursed his wide mouth. "I don't know. Nothing in my own mind at the very least."

"What about Miss Smith?" The Caretaker enquired reasonably.

"What about her?"

"Is it possible that something within _her_ mind is causing all of this?"

The Doctor considered. "It's not completely impossible. Something within Sarah's unconsciousness could be emitting a low-level telepathic field which is effecting me as well as her. Human extrasensory abilities are slim and none, but something may have affected her brain in such a manor as to make it possible."

He walked forward until he hovered a few inches away from Sarah's gurney, and then stood ramrod still. To an outsider, it would appear as though the Doctor were simply staring at her, but in reality he was probing through Sarah's unconscious mental barriers, trying to find something he prayed was not there.

He reeled backward, gasping for air as he touched something within Sarah's mind. He had to steady himself on the gurney to keep from falling over.

"There's something there." He breathed, barely believing it himself. "There is most absolutely, unequivocally, irrefutably, _definitely_ something there! The problem is . . ." He trailed off.

"What, Doctor?" The Caretaker asked, concerned.

"It didn't feel whole." He twiddled his thumbs as he tried to collect his thoughts. "Mind you, it was powerful, and undoubtedly sentient, but it felt as though it were only small part of something bigger, as if not everything were in Sarah's mind at once. As if it were reaching out from somewhere else, somewhere far, far away."

"Nevertheless, this anomaly in Miss Smith's neurological matrix may very well be causing the physical deterioration that threatens both your lives. It is imperative that we remove it."

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow. "How do you suggest we do that? It's not something we can cut out with a scalpel and cat gut. As I've said, whatever _it_ is possesses little more physical existence than an abstract idea, a . . . _dream_."

The Doctor's speech faltered, and he all but mouthed the last word. _Dreams, dreams, dreams . . . _

His already alarmingly wide eyes bugged even more. "THAT'S IT!" He exclaimed gleefully.

"Doctor?"

"This semi-sentient mind parasite . . . thing, must be harbored within the parietal lobe and amygdala of Sarah's brain! That's why we can't wake her: she's been forcefully induced into phasic REM sleep. We can't physically pin-point the source of the illness because it is disguising itself and existing as a dream!"

The Caretaker crossed her arms, skeptical of such a nonscientific conclusion. "While this is no doubt a revelation pertaining to the problem, it still leaves us at a loss concerning a solution."

The Doctor spoke hurriedly as he dashed around the facility, seeming to look for something. "_Au contraire_, _Mademoiselle_. This is a revelation pertaining very much to a solution. Do you happen to have a spectrography imager?"

She pointed to a sleek, grey machine with a plethora of lime green data read-outs, positioned quietly in the corner of the room. "We have a more advanced equivalent thereof. When both I and an Ephemeral are connected to the machine, it implants in my mind the brain waves of his or her limbic system. In a sense, it allows me to read their thoughts."

The Doctor grinned giddily, galloping over to the machine. "That's all I need, Caretaker. With a few adjustments . . ."

Before the Eternal could protest, the Doctor had a hatch open and was well into his tinkering. He pulled wires and reordered circuits faster than the Caretaker could follow.

"There!" He murmured through a mouthful of wire ends, "I've reversed the polarity of the device's cranial integrator so that when Sarah and I are connected to the machine, _my_ thoughts are projected along a psychic transference into _her_ thoughts, instead of vice-versa. It should allow me to communicate with Sarah's subconscious, and if I'm lucky, to walk around the dream interface of her brain in search of our fiend."

"And if you're not lucky?"

The Doctor paused. Unwittingly, he massaged the aching point between his two out-of-control hearts. They were constant reminders of how dire the situation had become, and he didn't know how much longer he could hold off the pain.

"There's no definitive evidence that my thoughts will take metaphysical form, Caretaker." He explained, "Nobody really knows where dreams come from, or if they manifest into anything more than the purely abstract. I could very well be turning myself into a brainless vegetable when my thoughts leave my mind and don't go anywhere."

The Caretaker was horrified, and she made it clear. "You could turn comatose, Doctor!"

"Sarah and I are both going to die if I don't try. It's not as though I've got much of a choice."

The Caretaker opened her mouth to protest, but she found she could not formulate any argument that would dissuade the Doctor _and_ offer a better solution. Much as it pained her, the Time Lord's plan was the only option.

He was right. They did not have a choice.

"Very well. You have made your choice, but on your own head be it, Time Lord."

"Oh, Caretaker. Isn't it always?"

The Eternal blinked her metallic, globular eyes in what could be interpreted as pity, but otherwise she said nothing. She glided around the facility, rolling the spectrography imager into place between Sarah and a supplementary chair that had been placed there for the Doctor. He took his seat, wiggling in the cushion until he was comfy. The Doctor's lax composure boggled the Caretaker; how he could be agreeing to undertake such a hazardous procedure and yet remain completely unconcerned about the danger, she did not know. It was not logical.

Then again, the Doctor was not the paramount example of logic at its finest.

As she pondered over these thoughts, the Caretaker linked Sarah and the Doctor into the central machine. Both were adorned in more section-cup electrodes than a lab-grown clone. Once she had checked and double-checked the machinery, she ghosted her ebony hand over the initiation switch, ready for the final order.

"If this does work, and I am not entirely certain it will, the psychic transference will no doubt be disorienting. You will have only a limited period of time to succeed in your mission. Once your bodily readouts return to normal, I will reverse the transference to keep your mind and Sarah's from warping together and killing you both."

"Doctor, I do not know what you will face in Miss Smith's mind, but you must be prepared for some discomfort."

The Doctor let out a hollow, sardonic laugh. "My dear, the actual transference is the least of my worries!"

"Very well, then. You have been warned. Prepare yourself."

The Doctor closed his eyes, letting himself relax. For a few moments, nothing happened.

Then he was falling. It was if a bungee chord had latched onto the small of his back and was pulling him deeper and deeper into the black nether. The Doctor yelped in fright, but his voice was swallowed by the darkness as he tumbled further and further away from anything and everything friendly and familiar.

The Doctor was plunged into the world of dreams.

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	11. Chapter 11: The Poetry of Fear

**Okay, this is a bit of a weird one. Remember, it is rated T.  
You have been warned.**

_Before the biggest nightmare of all . . . _

* * *

_What will you see if you open your eyes, Sarah Jane? Don't you want to know?_

No. Go away. You can't hurt me if I can't see you.

_ But I am hurting you. I am _**within** _you. Eating you away from the inside out, plaguing your mind like a virus._

I'm not listening. The Doctor told me I'd be safe if I kept my eyes shut.

_ The Doctor is DEAD. I killed him. That man you trust is nothing more than a walking corpse, an In-between, a shadow of the past. A whisper of things long lost. He's no more real than I am._

You're wrong! He's more real than you will ever be!

_ You put your faith in false gods, Sarah Jane Smith. But you don't need me to tell you that, do you?_

What are you talking about?

_ I know you, Sarah. I've been inside your head. I'm _**still** _inside your head. I know the bitterness and the disappointment that shadow every waking minute of your life. You feel inferior, weak, insignificant compared to _**him**_. You thought he would give you purpose. You thought he cared. Ha! He only brought you sorrow and heartbreak, and for what? How could you, a mere human mortal, have possibly mattered to a Time Lord?_

_ You knew this. Nevertheless, in all of your naive stupidity, you followed him into _**my** _domain. I killed him. I made him suffer. I twisted his will and took away any flicker of hope he had until his soul was nought but dust and broken promises. He died slowly, in agony, believing for a few bleak moments that someone would come and help him only to find that his human companions really were nothing more than shallow, worthless parasites. _

Stop it! Please, stop!

_ He died knowing that Sarah Jane Smith truly was a spineless, black-hearted, disloyal coward. You didn't matter to him in the end, because he died in pain, afraid and alone._

NO! He told me to leave! He told me and Harry to stay safe!

_ When you finally did come back, you let it happen again. You let Harry Sullivan die for you. Harry, who adored you beyond comprehension and would go to the ends of the universe simply to make you smile. He died for a heartless woman who cared more for a disinterested alien than she ever did for him._

_ Look what your love did, Sarah Jane Smith. Look what happens when you put your faith in people._

Sarah was sobbing. She stuffed her fists in her ears and tried in vain to silence the vile voice that slithered around in her mind.

Shut up! Shut UP!

It laughed. It was a cruel, wicked sound, like fingernails on chalkboard and broken glass.

_You can't shut me up! I'm always here! I'm a part of you! And you know, deep in that black heart of yours, that every word I've said is true._

_ But you can redeem yourself, Sarah. Open your eyes and let come what may. See your precious Doctor again. Look Harry in the eyes and tell him that you really did care. Prove. Me. Wrong._

Sarah wanted to scream and kick and fight and then run away as fast as she could. She wanted to strangle that evil thing and cast it into the deepest, darkest corner of time and space. The words were poisonous, riddled with lies and travesties simply trying to elicit an emotional response from her. The Doctor was right, it was not real. It was good, but it wasn't going to be good enough.

"Sarah? Sarah, old thing, please open your eyes."

Sarah froze. Her heart caught in her throat and her blood ran like ice water through her veins. She knew that voice. It was smooth and cultured, almost posh despite the native London burr. But it was streaked with pain, as if any second it would break into sobbing or screaming. It was poised on the brink of utter hopelessness.

"Harry?" Sarah asked out loud. She instinctively kept her eyes shut.

"Sarah, I can't stand it. It hurts so badly . . ."

_It's not real it's not real Harry is dead it's not real it's NOT real._

"Harry, I'm sorry." Sarah's voice quivered with emotion. "I never wanted any of this to happen."

"You left me!" cried Harry, sobs cracking his words. "I saved your life and you just left me like I was nothing. Even now you don't care enough to look me in the eye and tell me you're sorry!"

"Harry, please. I can't . . ."

"You don't care about me! I'm nothing to you! And I'll tell you something else, Sarah. That Doctor couldn't have loved you more in a 1000 years than I did since the moment I first clapped eyes on you! WHY WON'T YOU LOOK AT ME?!"

"NO!"

She expected something to launch itself at her from the darkness. She could almost feel its presence, like a wraith hovering just outside her reach; the sheer panic and uncertainty alone were almost enough to break her concentration. Her heart was willing her eyes to open but every fibre of reason was commanding her to hold her reserve.

Then, long fingers intertwined with hers and clasped her hand with ironclad strength. _His_ fingers.

"Run! Keep your eyes SHUT." The Doctor ordered, pulling Sarah along behind him as he trundled into the street.

Sarah could feel his double pulse in his wrist, which rested against the tips of her fingers; adrenaline made the curious melody beat even faster in four, rapid successions. Sarah kept her eyes glued shut, trusting that the Doctor knew what he was doing and where he was going. He maintained his breakneck sprint deeper and deeper into the everlasting night. Sarah could feel the wind plastering snowflakes against her numbed flesh and the Doctor's hearts-beats coursing up her arm, but in that escape she felt herself cut off from all other sensations. She felt no sense of time or distance. For a split second, she and the Doctor could have very well been the only living things in the universe.

He finally stopped. Sarah stopped with him to avoid rushing headlong into his back. Her hand squeezed his until his knuckles grinded together. If the Doctor felt discomfort, he didn't voice it.

"Sarah Jane," He said quietly, kneeling until his head was even with hers. Sarah could feel the cold puff of his breath. "You can open your eyes now."

She shivered. "**It** could be right here, right in front of me. Opening my eyes could be what **It** wants. It's coming . . . Oh my god, what if **It's** here right now!"

Sarah broke into a sweat despite the cold. She could sense the raw hysteria coiling up in her stomach like an agitated snake. She felt like vomiting.

Then she felt something. Two somethings, in fact, on each of her closed eyelids. The skin was chilled, but surprisingly soft. Gently, the pads of someone's thumbs rolled her eyelids up. Sarah instinctively flinched and tensed to run, but relaxed when she realized she was gazing at the Doctor. Not a murderous, sadistic creature hell-bent on her destruction, just the Doctor. He cupped her face with one hand while thumbing away the snowflakes and slow-rolling tears that had gathered around Sarah's brown eyes with the other.

"Oh, Sarah . . ." He murmured, his own eyes bright and damp with unshed tears. "What is **It** doing to you?"

He gave her a small, reassuring smile as he brushed a ringlet of brown hair out of her face, tracing her cheekbone as he did so.

Sarah lost connectivity with the rest of the world. The snowflakes seemed to form a veil, surrounding herself and the Doctor in a cocoon of silent, shimmering white. Sarah let his hand caress her face; while the gesture was unexpected, it was still quite lovely. Despite the unusualness of the situation, Sarah couldn't bring herself to end it. Time stretched, until each second became a lifetime and each minute an eternity.

_He and I are the only real things_, Sarah told herself, _He and I _are_ the only ones in the entire universe._

Then he kissed her.

Sarah was so startled that she flinched and took a step backwards. Slowly, she allowed herself to relax and return the gesture with equal fervor. His lips with soft, his breath was seasonal and warm despite the cool pang of his skin. He smelled suspiciously like cinnamon buns. The Doctor held the back of her neck and gently pulled her closer, tenderly running his fingers through the tresses in her hair.

Sarah didn't know how long that kiss lasted, but she didn't want it to end. She wanted it to last until the end of time. It was, Sarah realized, the only thing she had ever wanted. It was perfect.

But it did end. Sarah pulled away, but remained so close that his lips brushed her forehead and his double heartbeat reverberated within her chest, forcing her human heart to march to the same rhythm. His long fingers traced her chin; he murmured something Sarah couldn't hear but felt she didn't need to hear to understand. She wanted more than anything to meet his lips again, to have him love her and tell her everything was going to be okay.

But it wasn't going to be okay. That kiss had brought perfection, and with it, truth.

Sarah breathed, letting her words mix with the frosty air, "You're not real."

The Doctor's hand had found its way to the small of her back. He pushed her ever closer towards him. To Sarah's surprise, and somewhat delight, she did not resist.

"We are real, Sarah Jane." The Doctor murmured. His words carried a caress of their own, brushing her forehead like a summer breeze. "We are the only real ones in the universe. You and me."

His fingers parted her lips, and Sarah knew she could just forget it all, then and there. Forget her old Doctor, forget Harry, forget this world and all that plagued it. She could join the in-between Doctor to wherever they dared go. Lose herself forever in their love . . . Except . . .

"This isn't real." Sarah said again, more firmly. She inched away from the wall of blue velvet, and held the Doctor with her gaze.

"You're not real." She reaffirmed, "You're an illusion like everything you've been trying to protect me from."

"Why, my dear?" He asked, donning a haughty, bemused expression.

"My Doctor would never do anything like that." Sarah had to fight to get the words out, as if something inside her were smothering them like a candle wick. "You say you're an amalgamation of my two Doctors, the one I loved as a father and the one I loved as my best friend. No matter what person he was, no matter how he felt about me in return, he would never,_ ever_ break his bounds. It was a good try, and I would love more than anything to believe you, but you simply don't know my Doctors the way I do."

The Doctor, or whoever he was, let out a light, throaty chuckle. _That_ chuckle, and for a split second Sarah began to doubt herself. Then he said,

"Aren't you the clever one, Sarah Jane?"

The hand that had been subtly stroking the back of her neck whipped around and clamped onto Sarah's windpipe with astonishing force. His fingernails dug red pits into her white skin.

Sarah retched, desperately gasping for air. The hands that had been so familiar and tender were now brutal, iron, and cold. She tried to grasp at his restraining hand, but she felt as though all energy had been drained from her body. Groaning, hovering on the edge of consciousness, Sarah went limp in his grip. He lifted her face to his, his hand supporting her weak frame as if she were nothing more than a ragdoll.

"Who would have known one could be capable of so much _feeling_." He hissed, in his voice. God, it was still _his_ voice!

Sarah, between suffocating and dangling a good foot in the air supported by a hand like a steel vice, croaked out, "It was you all along. You were behind the illusions, the nightmares, everything. What do you want with me?"

The _thing_, still wearing the third Doctor's young but now sadistically twisted face, whispered, "This! This is what I want . . ."

His hand squeezed tighter. Sarah tried to struggle and fight, but her body remained indubitably paralyzed. Dark, swirling spots danced in front of her eyes, her panic rising to full-blown terror and disbelief as the creature that looked like her beloved Doctor strangled her to death.

"Yes . . ." He moaned in pleasure, "Yes . . ."

Just as the darkness began to settle in for the final curtain, Sarah was released. She collapsed to the cold street in a pile of limbs and clothes, gagging and retching in an attempting to get oxygen into her sore lungs.

No sooner had Sarah gotten her breath back that she began vomiting in the snow. She cried all the while; she was sick with revulsion and fear.

Sarah, taking deep breaths and making every effort to collect herself, finished her episode and had a look around. Her tormentor was gone, along with the buildings, the pavements, the streets, and every other sign of civilization. She was kneeling on a thin blanket of snow, the white stretching for miles in all directions until it met with the pitch black sky on the line of the horizon. Even the stars were gone.

An entire world had simply vanished.

Sarah hugged herself and remained stock-still, willing herself to die, willing the cold to kill her. She didn't want to live anymore, if living meant surviving in this Hell.

For the first time, Sarah Jane Smith felt truly and utterly helpless. Truly and utterly alone.

When the darkness finally did begin to descend, she welcomed it with a wan smile and open arms

Embracing something only she could see, Sarah crumpled into the snow, and did not move again.

* * *

To Be Continued . . .

**How's that for a cliffhanger? :)**


	12. Chapter 12: Phantom Snow

_Going where even the Doctor feared . . . _

* * *

His first sensation in the vast expanse of the unconscious mind was a mouthful of numbing snow.

The psychic transference had landed the Doctor face-first in the white, unbroken surface. He was fully dressed in his traditional accoutrements of coat, vest, scarf, and cravat as an unconscious interpretation of his own personal appearance. But, with his limps splayed out, his coat and scarf twisted at odd angles, the Doctor looked more like a walloped Alpha Centurian trying to make a snow angel. Groaning and cursing the inefficiency and overall unpleasantness of Eternal technology, but thankful that his plan had worked at all, the Doctor rolled onto his back and stared slack-faced at the featureless sky. Perhaps it was the shock of the icy snow, but it took the Doctor a little while to find the problem with the spectral vista.

"Rather," he mused to himself, "the vista with lack of actual 'spectral'. No stars. And judging by the absence of established civilization as well as tropospheric light pollution or ionic particle interference, star dearth not to be attributed to atmospheric conditions. Curiouser and curiouser . . ."

Abruptly, the Doctor's hand delved into his fathomless pockets. Grinning in satisfaction as he found his target, he removed his beige, floppy fedora and jammed it onto his bed of curly hair. He arched his back and leapt to his feet in one, fluid motion. It was a surprisingly lithe movement for a man of his build.

A steady curtain of snow was still falling; the fat flakes quickly filled-in the Doctor's landing imprint. Puzzled, he took another glance at the sky. The void was deep and fluid, eerily blank and completely featureless. Welcoming an obstruction among the flat, pristine landscape, the snowflakes quietly settled on the Doctor's lashes and the tip of his nose. His shoulders were soon covered in a cape of sparkling white. He opened his mouth and tilted his head skywards, allowing a few of the wintry particles to alight on his tongue.

"Fascinating!" He exclaimed, glancing over his shoulder. Reminding himself that there was nobody there to listen to his rather impressive cleverness, the Doctor resumed in a more subdued tone, "There's a sky without stars, snow without clouds, and I can see myself and my surroundings quite clearly despite the absence of a light source."

The unconscious mind was certainly a very interesting place.

The Doctor's enthusiastic breakdown wavered off as the silence swallowed his words. Feeling a bit put-off, he turned his gaze to focus on the edge of the horizon, a line that lay in stark contrast between the blackest sky and the whitest snow. His Time Lord vision narrowed, discerning that the 'line' of the horizon was not a line at all. The edge between black and white was a watercolor blur. The sky appeared to seep into the earth, staining the featureless white with angry tendrils of black, like leaky ink wells onto a sheet of paper. It was a disturbing site, but not an isolated one. The Doctor could see his own clothing, usually so bright and florid, slowly dissolving to near monochrome. It was if all color, all vibrance, all life were fading away.

"This world is dying." The Doctor affirmed, suddenly deadly serious. "Sarah doesn't have much time left."

Fueled by the implications of his apocalyptic conclusion, the Doctor started trotting. He didn't know where he was going, he just knew he had to find something that would help Sarah. He had to find the thing hiding in her mind.

It did not take the Doctor long to realize that it had not taken him long to realize that it had not taken him long to realize . . . something important. The dizzying paradox swirling in the Doctor's mind brought him to a dead halt after . . . how long? There was no constant on which to base telling the time. There were no stars, no natural satellites, not even a discernible gravity flow or magnetic field. Whipping out his battered fob watch, the Doctor found that even it was conveniently busticated.

Feeling frustrated and a little confused, the Doctor took stock of his surroundings. They were _exactly the same_ as when he started, however long ago. How long _had_ he been running? How far had he traveled? He checked his pulse rate for signs of fatigue, only to find that both of his hearts had stopped beating. He had no discernible pulse.

He smiled his most charming, reassuring smile, though who he was trying to reassure, he didn't know. "Ah, of course! My real body doesn't exist here, so by extension, my internal organs don't _work_ here. I'm just a fragment of my detached psychic field being projected into Sarah's unconscious mind. I am an illusion of reality, or the first realistic illusion. I'm not too sure."

Nothing made sense here. It was if the entire world were a travesty of mind-numbing, never ending recursion paradoxes. The Time Lord struggled to keep to grips with even the simplest of thoughts. For all the Doctor knew, he could have traveled less than three yards, or he could have circled the world entirely and ended right back at the beginning. If he didn't know how _big_ the world was, then he certainly didn't know _where_ he was.

And the phantom snow did have an annoying habit of covering his tracks.

It was if all facets of this world existed simply for the purpose of confounding the Doctor's logic.

"A person could go mad here." He mused to himself.

_If I haven't done so already_.

The last thought passed through the Doctor's mind as his attention was drawn to a dark shape curled up in the snow, pitch black against the striking whiteness of the landscape. It looked surreal, almost mirage-like, in the monotonous void. Nevertheless, the Doctor bounded towards it, thankful for some small landmark in the snow. As he drew closer, he found that the black was in fact dark brown, surrounded by the muted grays and blues of a thick, Victorian jacket and tangled cravat. The figure was eerily quiet and serene; her thin limbs were tucked neatly around her as if she'd just curled up and gone to sleep.

The Doctor's nonfunctioning hearts did double summersaults in his chest. He started to sprint.

"_Sarah_!" He cried out, anticipating some sort of reply . . . and getting none.

The Doctor knelt down beside her and shook her stiff arm, hoping beyond hope that the phantom snow had not been real enough to freeze her to death. He released a sigh he'd inadvertently been holding when he found her chest rising and falling at intervals that were too few and far between.

What was the silly girl doing, just laying there? Brushing away the thin layer of snow blanketing her, the Doctor fingered several raw bruises surrounding Sarah's windpipe and trapezius muscle. The fresh, angry marks answered the his question quite satisfactorily: she had been attacked.

The Doctor, with renewed vigor, continued to shake her and whispered roughly in her ear, "Sarah, wake up! Come on, you're still breathing. You're not doing a bucket-load of good just laying there snoring and I'm certainly not going to pick you up and carry you!"

His sarcastic remarks, something Sarah would have laughed at and rebuked with equal derision under normal circumstances, fell on deaf ears. The Doctor _had_ to get her awake; he couldn't wait and remain in her unconscious indefinitely. If he stayed too long, he would never leave again. The Caretaker had warned him; the Doctor and Sarah Jane's minds would be irrevocably warped together as the sickness destroying their bodies took its course. It would form a psychic metacrisis, and a deadly one at that.

The Doctor bit his tongue, squeezing his great blue eyes shut whilst raising his right hand.

_Oh dear, if she ever wakes up again she is never going to let me forget this . . ._

"So sorry, Sarah." Apologized the Doctor as he brought his hand down, hard, across the side of Sarah's face.

The first slap was enough to strengthen her jagged breathing. The second was enough to snap open a pair of haunted, hazel eyes. The third resulted in the Doctor reeling backwards while nursing a very tender, very bruised right eye.

Sarah gathered herself surprisingly quickly and was on her feet in seconds. If the Doctor had expected an over-joyous reunion, he was sorely disappointed. She gave him a cursory head-to-toe scan with her jittery eyes. Then, for no discernible reason whatsoever, she bolted.

"Sarah? Sarah!" A very startled Doctor darted after her. "I promise not to slap you anymore!"

She paid him no heed and continued her full throttle sprint. The Doctor found, to his surprise, that he had to lengthen his strides to keep up with her. He was a Time Lord: there was no way she could outrun him. But Sarah wasn't simply running, she was escaping. Her adrenaline-spiked flee revealed a hidden physical capability that could not be replicated under any other condition. It was the flight reaction, the most basic instinctual drive of all. Sarah was running because she truly believed her life was in danger.

She was terrified.

The Doctor sped up, his long legs eventually closing the gap. He reached out a hand to restrain her, to prevent her from overexerting herself under these circumstances. She had been unconscious and barely breathing a few minutes ago, after all. Unfortunately, as soon the Doctor's fingers brushed her coat, Sarah wheeled around and thrust a fist at his face. The swing was desperate and uncoordinated, but it was still enough to box the Doctor's right ear. Grimacing, but undeterred, he kept a full grip on Sarah's arm.

"Let me go!" She screamed, digging her nails into the scratchy tweed of her pursuer's coat, "LET ME GO!"

The Doctor boggled. "Sarah, it's me! It's the Doctor! For goodness sakes, get ahold of yourself!"

"I'm not falling for it this time!" She snarled, "You will never be real to me because you killed them! I LOVED THEM AND YOU KILLED THEM, YOU BASTARD!"

With her free hand, Sarah snatched something out of her pocket, a long, tasseled, multicolored something. It was tattered, unraveling, and spattered with suspicious streaks of dark red.

It was his scarf.

The Doctor looked at his beloved accessory, now stained with the marks of pain and death. It brought with it a sense of realization: the Doctor was dead. At least he was from Sarah's perspective. And whatever had happened to her between then and now had been so traumatizing that Sarah was willing to destroy anything that did not conform to her perception of normality. Generally, it was going to make the Doctor's mission of extracting the disease from Sarah's mind extremely difficult. It already had her deep in its grasps.

The Doctor spoke slowly and gently, trying to soothe the tortured creature that had replaced his friend, "Sarah, I am not dead. Look, I'm still wearing my old scarf." He wound the 15 foot long accoutrement around his arm. For good measure, he knocked the side of his head and hopped three inches in the air. "See? Not dead."

"That safely out of the way, the Sarah I remember knows that I would never dream of hurting her. If there's any of my Sarah Jane left, you're going to need to trust me if both of us are going to get out of this pickle unscathed, eh?"

The girl seemed to quiet down. The Doctor's rich, sonorous voice was both calming and a touch hypnotic; he could see some of the tension leaving Sarah's taut shoulders. He relaxed his grip on her arm, relieved to have reached some agreeable sliver of her altered persona. His relief was short-lived, he soon discovered, once Sarah barreled shoulder first into his chest and tackled all 76 inches of him to the ground.

The impact knocked the wind out his lungs. Sarah was small and slender, but all of her weight thrown behind the brute force of the blow was enough to send even the most robust Time Lord spluttering. While the Doctor was still trying to fight for air, Sarah jammed a bony knee into his abdomen and wound her fingers into his scarf, pulling it dangerously taught.

The Doctor froze. One sudden movement could snap her hesitation. And if his hearts weren't working, what were the chances of his respiratory bypass system working either?

"What's to stop me from ending you?" Sarah pondered, her voice stoically calm and quiet. She could have been conducting an interview.

"I'm not the one you want, Sarah." The Doctor assured her, forming the words with difficulty through the constriction around his throat, "You don't want to kill me. I'm your best friend."

The scarf got tighter. "Liar! You're a sick, sadistic hoaxer who's been playing mind games for me for God knows how long! The young, charming incarnation of the Doctor was a nice trick, but it didn't score high on the realism charts, did it?"

"A young . . . beg pardon?"

"You're not my Doctor! You're not real! My Doctor is dead, lying lifeless somewhere in the snow with a hole in his chest. Harry's there, too! I swore I would get revenge." Sarah was sobbing, but her eyes betrayed a fury very unlike her old self. "You've been dancing circles around me since before I can remember. How does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine?"

Sarah pulled the scarf tighter, and tighter, and tighter. The Doctor's lungs screamed in protest; he felt as though a brick were crushing his chest. Bright, kaleidoscopic patterns danced in front of his eyes like multicolored strobe lights. He jerked his arms and legs, but his struggles barely glanced off of Sarah. It was if something were protecting her. Something wanted her to kill him.

_I have to break its grip_. _I have to convince Sarah I'm real_.

"City of the Exxilons." The Doctor spluttered.

Sarah's grip loosened the merest fraction. "What?"

"Do you remember our adventure on the Exxilon planet with the Daleks?" He explained, "I was about to venture inside the city. You were scared; you knew I could have very well been walking to my death. But I put a hand on your cheek, gave you a smile, and you knew you were going to see me again."

"After returning from Metebelis III, as I lay dying, I told you not to cry. I wiped away a tear, but you cried and cried long after I was gone. I suspect even old Alistair was crying, too!"

"In my new body, the first question I asked you was, 'If the hypotenuse of a triangle equals the sum of the square of the other two sides, then why is a mouse when it spins?' You, silly girl, didn't know the answer."

"On Skaro, when the Thals launched their rocket and obliterated the Kaled dome, I thought you were dead. For the first time in my life, I truly despaired. I lost hope. Then you and Harry, impossibly, showed up again. I embraced you so quickly because I didn't want you to see that I was crying."

"I am the Doctor. I am _your_ Doctor, and you are _my_ Sarah Jane Smith. And I will never let anyone hurt you ever again."

Sarah knelt there, stunned, eyes wide and mouth parted in a thin line of shock. The Doctor's words unlocked hundreds of doors within her mind; suddenly, she _remembered. _She remembered UNIT and the dinosaurs and the giant robot. She remembered the Cybermen and the Daleks. She remembered the Zygon Invasion and the ache of Harry's departure. She remembered, most recently, their plight through Renaissance Italy and her narrow escape from the Cult of Demnos. She remembered the pain, the terror, the relief, the hope, the tears, the smiles. She remembered the Doctor.

_Her_ Doctor.

Sarah unwound her fingers from the scarf and released the winded Time Lord. She curled herself together in the snow, hugging her knees to her chest. Slowly, ever so slowly, the terror-stricken clouds faded from Sarah's eyes and her body ceased its constant poise for flight. She shuddered, as if noticing the dark and the deep, permeating cold for the first time.

The Doctor, after getting his breath back, propped himself up on his elbows and then kneeled upright. He addressed her, "Sarah?"

Sarah's heavy lids fully opened and she regarded the Doctor was barely controlled relief and exhaustion. Slowly, she shuffled towards him and looped her arms around his midsection, pulling herself into the folds of his coat and scarf. The Doctor, forgetting his habitual awkwardness, found himself pulling her closer until he could feel her single heartbeat through his shirt.

"I'm sorry." Sarah whispered into his chest.

"I'm so sorry."

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	13. Chapter 13: Bordering on Illusion

**You know that Sarah/Doctor stuff I warned you about in the first chapter? Well . . . **

_When two friends were reunited . . ._**  
**

* * *

"Harry wasn't real?"

"He hasn't been real since we left him in Scotland."

"We've been traveling together? Just the two of us?"

"Almost a year now, by your reckoning."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely positive."

A pause. Sarah sat and pondered what felt like years and years worth of her life flooding back into her head.

"So," she composed herself, untangling her arms from the Doctor's vast assortment of clothing. She had never been so close to him before; it was pleasant, but she figured it was probably making him uncomfortable. The journalist inside her came to light, "Something must have been forming the illusions. How are we going to defeat it?"

The Doctor helped Sarah to her feet. He had never been so near to her before. It was rather pleasant, but he wasn't sure if it was making her uncomfortable. Brushing the snow off his jacket, he answered her question, "Well, it's not a matter of 'defeating' so much as a matter of 'deleting', _per se_."

"Same difference. I don't know what the hell is going on, but I do know that _someone_ or _something_ is at the heart of it."

"Like a spider in a web." The Doctor frowned and cast a glance over each of his shoulders. It never hurt to be too careful; thankfully, their only company was the snow and the shadows. "This may come as a bit of a shock, Sarah, but we are not trapped on any world you're familiar with. We are not trapped on any known planet in the entire universe."

"Come again?"

"We're inside your head. This entire setup is simply a psychic projection in the dreamscape of your brain."

"Oh. Okay."

Surprising herself, Sarah didn't find the information at all outlandish. When one traveled with the Doctor as much as she did, few things came as a surprise anymore. Besides, it was the only explanation that fit the details.

"What do I do, then? Tap my heels three times and wake up safe onboard the TARDIS?"

The Doctor inadvertently cringed at her attempt at lighthearted humor. He clarified, "Not quite, Sarah. The best we can do is flush this creature out of his current environment before he does any more damage. We can't fully 'defeat' something that doesn't exist, you know."

"Doesn't exist?! He nearly killed me . . . . . . . . . Twice! It's like a cross between _Psycho_ and Sigmund Freud on hallucinogens!"

The Doctor tapped the tip of her nose. His massive, face-splitting smile materialized at her sudden cleverness. "Exactly! Freud was an expert on the mind. His entire life was dedicated to probing the boundaries and energy links between the conscious and unconscious platforms of the human psyche."

Sarah crossed her arms, none too keen on being patronized. "I know that, thank you very much. All the same, wasn't most of his stuff written away as hogwash later on after his death?"

"His theories weren't as outlandish as many thought to believe, in fact." The Doctor waved his arms around him, as if he were trying to gather the entire world into his conversation. He raised his impressive voice to its full, bone-thrumming crescendo, "All of _this_ proves that some sort of neurological energy exists within the uncharted confines of the unconscious mind. A massive matrix of neuroelectrcal impulses projected along precise psychic wavelengths, sort of like a huge, mental computer program. The dreamworld. Unfortunately, your little friend seems to have just the qualifications necessary to harness the energy of that world to create anything he desires: illusions, tricks, alternate realities. The possibilities are endless. And he's doing it in such a way that his effect is destroying our physical bodies as well as our minds."

"So let's find him and boot him out!" Sarah exclaimed, trying to hide her creeping sense of foreboding at the thought of that _thing_ lurking about in her brain.

"That's the problem, you see." The Doctor ran a hand through his mop of hair. This was going to be the tricky bit . . . "We, that is, you and I, are simply electrochemical 'mirages' manifested in our own self-images and projected into your unconscious mind. We are outsiders. We are not part of the system, therefore we exist in the physical sense, but not in the metaphysical sense. This creature _is _part of the system. He is everywhere and nowhere, a being that lives on the essence of not-being. I think."

"Great. That makes everything so much clearer." Sarah muttered darkly. _Why couldn't he give her a straight answer for once?_

The Doctor mused to himself, ignoring his companion's sarcasm, "It's rather hard to fight an enemy that does not exist, like finding a smoke needle in a hypothetical haystack."

"You're just full of easy, color-by-the-number information, aren't you?"

"I'm being perfectly clear! You're just not listening, as usual!"

"You're being about as clear as proverbial mud, Doctor. _As usual_." She added vehemently.

"Coming from the girl who nearly strangled me to death with my own scarf . . ." The Doctor harrumphed, and then noticed the sudden hurt, dejected light in Sarah's liquid-brown eyes.

He regretted the words as soon as he uttered them, and inwardly cursed his loose tongue. He really did have to learn to control that loud mouth of his . . . it's no wonder Woodrow Wilson refused to let him speak at the Paris Peace Conference. He'd certainly had a few choice words for Vittorio Orlando _that_ day!

The Doctor mumbled an apology, "I'm sorry, Sarah." His sheepish voice was gruff and deep, a cross between a rock tumbler and a baritone saxophone. "It wasn't your fault."

"I know, I know." Sarah took a shaky breath and shot her friend a weak smile, but it faded quickly as a pained shadow fell over her features. She murmured, "It doesn't make it hurt any less, though."

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something witty and uplifting, but his hearts weren't into it. He just regarded his companion in contemplative silence, leaving her to her own thoughts.

He was terribly fond of Sarah Jane Smith, perhaps as a traveling companion, perhaps as something more. He really didn't know, and he had neither the time nor the nerve to find out. He did know, however, that it bothered him to see her as upset as she was now. Sarah was no weakling; she'd nearly bitten his head off when they'd first met and he'd asked her to make coffee. She'd stared down Daleks and dinosaurs and a few golly big spiders in her time, and none of them had rattled her quite like this thing had. It made the Doctor fearful for their predicament, but angry.

Uncommonly, astonishingly angry.

"What happened, Sarah?" He asked quietly, acutely aware that she had every right to refuse him an answer.

To his surprise, she didn't. She wrung her hands and took an effort to meet his gaze, but answered with her characteristic journalistic severity.

So, she told him. She told him everything: the whispers and the ghosts and the creatures born from the primordial darkness of nightmares. Well, she told him _almost_ everything. Certain somethings, Sarah decided, were best left untold.

The Doctor hung on to every word, listening with an earnestness most unlike his usual brash, pendular, short-attentive self. When Sarah had finished her story, the Doctor remained stony-faced and silent, save for the minute twitch of a tiny muscle in his jaw. It took someone of Sarah's experience with the Time Lord to notice the subtle anxious tick, but it's meaning was clear enough: a storm was brewing.

"Of all the sadistic, twisted, unspeakable abominations!" The Doctor growled, clutching his scarf in a clenched fist to keep his temper under control.

"Add a few explicates in there, and you've summed up my thoughts quite pointedly."

"But why?" The Doctor kicked a bank of snow in frustration. "What's the point? Why play tortuous mind games with a human? What's to gain?"

"Are you asking me?"

"I don't know!" He snapped. The Doctor jammed his hands into his pockets and stalked away in a huff, too absorbed in his thoughts to give Sarah's vexation much notice.

Suddenly, he wheeled around and frowned. "How did you know?"

"I beg your pardon?" _It's like listening to half a conversation with this man_ . . .

"You mentioned a stranger, a friend who ended up betraying you. How did you know this 'stranger' wasn't a real person? What gave him away as an illusion?"

Sarah could feel her cheeks reddening and her skin growing hot. "Erm . . ."

"It's a simple enough question, Sarah!"

"Let's just say," she articulated _very_ carefully, "some dreams are too good to be true."

"And you say I'm vague." The Doctor muttered, "That's hardly an answer!

"It's the best I can do, under the circumstances!"

"Sarah, if we're going to beat this creature, I'm going to need to know every scrap of detail your little human mind can conjure up."

"Little human mi . . . of all the infernal cheek!" She raged.

"Sarah!"

"All right!" She took a breath and blurted out on one lung-full of air, "The stranger was you actually a sort of in-between of you and your previous self and you were young and charming and handsome and you saved my life and I knew you weren't real!"

The Doctor blinked. "Um . . . what?" He hadn't caught much of that.

"The creature appeared as _you_." She sighed, "He was a mix of you now and you then. You looked like your former self, you even sounded a bit like him, but you were younger and your eyes were bluer, like they are now. You saved my life and convinced me that I had finally found one person I could trust in this madhouse."

"You trusted a complete stranger, alone with you in a world of illusion, who just happened to resemble my past incarnation?"

"How was I to know better?" Sarah asked bitterly, "I assumed it was something you Time Lords did after you regenerated! Heaven alone knows, I've seen you do stranger! I thought you were dead, Doctor. I lost hope, and at that point I was willing to put my faith in a ghost."

"But how did you _know_?" The Doctor persisted, "This world is a cornucopia of mirages and illusions all clashing together in a jumble of falsified reality. What was the one, single, unequivocal detail that convinced you he was fake? We can use it, Sarah. If we can wield it like a weapon, we can use it to discover how to break his hold on your mind and bring him into the open! Think, Sarah!"

"I don't need to _think_. I know perfectly well what convinced me."

"What, then?"

"This." Sarah grabbed the lapels of the Doctor's coat, pulled him lower, and kissed him square on the lips.

The Doctor's wide eyes bugged out of his skull. He was too stunned to do much more than stoop there numbly like an imbecile. He'd taken down Daleks, Cybermen, crazy, conniving megalomaniacs bent on universal conquest, murderous aliens of every shape and size. He'd sat in the trenches of World War I, hauled bricks to build the pyramids, wove baskets on Machu Pichu at the height of the Incan Empire. He'd seen the total extermination and rebirth of countless peoples and civilizations. All of it paled in comparison to this! This was . . . this was . . .

Wonderful! Absolutely wonderful!

Sarah released him. Even as she re-donned her haughty, serious expression, the Doctor continued to stand there like a deer in headlights, gaping.

"Well . . . I . . . ah . . ." The Doctor stammered, a deep blush blooming from under the folds of his multicolored scarf, "I . . . honestly can't think of a single thing to say . . ."

"Are you satisfied, Sherlock? _That_ was creature's mistake, and we can hardly use it as a weapon."

The Doctor, still reddening like an amorous schoolboy, could only manage a feeble nod. He squeaked, "I still can't think of a single thing to say."

"Then shut up for once in your lives and help me." Sarah started forward in the snow, not meeting the Doctor's eyes. "I want this thing out of my head. Now."

He nodded glumly, following her into that eerie nightscape that seemed to have no end. In his massive, complicated Time Lord brain, usually so bustling with ideas and ingenuity, only one simple, mundane thought wandered through his mind like a dejected traveler who'd suddenly won the lottery . . .

_Dear Rassilon, I've just been snogged by Sarah Jane Smith!_

* * *

To Be Continued . . .

**'Atta way, Doctor!**


	14. Chapter 14: The Doctor's Speculum

_In which the Doctor meets his adversary . . . _

* * *

The two travelers made about three steps worth of progress before a figure elongated from the inky gloom to block their way. Sarah had neither seen him nor heard him approach; it was if he had melted into existence out of the shadows and the swirls of falling snow.

He was a tall, broad man with an unkempt mop of curly hair and long, lanky limbs that hung awkwardly at his side. His face was puckered in concern; his pale blue eyes held an impressive stare and his wide mouth pursed in a frown of severe contemplation. In his hands, he fiddled with the tassels of an excessively long scarf.

Once the Doctor's initial shock had passed, he gave a small facial shrug and nodded approvingly, "I can honestly say I didn't see that one coming. Still, what a remarkably handsome fellow to grace us with his presence!"

"Doctor?" Sarah asked the newcomer in abject disbelief.

_Well, she supposed it was only a matter of time before she went completely bonkers._

"Yes, Sarah. I am the Doctor." The newcomer said carefully, keeping his sonorous voice level and his eyes fixated on Sarah's companion, "I don't know who that is with you, but he certainly isn't me."

The Doctor's nostrils flared like he was about to blow fire. "I most certainly am you . . . well . . . me!"

"This world is a funhouse of illusion." The other Doctor insisted, looking at Sarah earnestly, "He's trying to trick you. He's playing on the compassion and concern you feel for me to mislead your loyalty and draw you into his final trap. Trust me, Sarah Jane."

"No!" The Doctor stood between a very confused Sarah and his unhelpful twin. "Don't trust him! It's what he wants. He's trying to make you doubt your own judgement and give in to uncertainty."

"How do you know that isn't what _he_ wants?!" The Doctor jabbed a bony finger in the Doctor's direction.

"Because I'm real, and you're not!"

"Codswhollop! You're no more real than Harry Sullivan's sense of humor!"

"Well, no argument there . . . nevertheless, you're doing a terrible impersonation of me! I'm not that scruffy and my nose is certainly not that big!"

"Look in the mirror sometime, and you'll realize that you are, in fact, doing a terrible impersonation of _me_."

"STOP IT!" Sarah's head reeled, glancing from Doctor to Doctor with an increasing sense of exasperation, frustration, and outright panic. She couldn't tell either of them apart; the two men were exactly the same! Hair, scarf, insufferable personality . . . everything!

"Just . . . shut up and let me think a minute." Sarah said in an effort to collect herself. She pinched the bridge of her nose in concentration.

"You don't need to think, Sarah!" The Doctor, the one further away, cried fervently, "You'll just start to doubt yourself more."

"Sarah," The closer Doctor took her by the shoulders and looked directly into her eyes. The deep blue of his irises was mesmerizing, hypnotic. It was like looking into an inky, sedate whirlpool, drawing her further and further into its fathomless depths. She could see the Doctor's mouth moving, but his voice reverberated within her mind, lulling her into a quiet stupor.

_Look at him carefully. Now look at me. He is not me. Understand? He is not me._

Something clicked in Sarah's mind.

_Oh no you don't!_

Sarah broke through the dreamy haze, wrenching her gaze away from the Time Lord's soporific stare. She chose instead to ogle at the Doctor's shoes. "How do I know you're not trying to hypnotize me into thinking you're real and he's not?"

_Whoops._

The Doctor grimaced as his idea took wing and flew away. Inducing Sarah to a mild dose of hypnosis should have kept her from doing anything rash.

"Well," he fell back on the age-old utterance, "you're just going to have to trust me."

"Trust _me_, Sarah!" The other Doctor called, "Come over here now, or he's never going to let you go!"

Sarah made a move to step forward, but the Doctor latched a hand onto her upper arm.

"Don't move." He growled, surprising himself with how severe he sounded.

Sarah could feel herself being drawn in two different directions, like iron filings in a magnetic field. Her head was poised on the brink of civil war; her instincts were telling her drastically different things about what to do and who to trust. If she made a mistake, if she went with the wrong man, it would all be over. The creature in her mind would win, logic and reason be damned.

But who was the real Doctor?

Suddenly, Sarah whipped out a white, scruffy bag from her frock coat pocket. It was bulgy and misshapen from the colorful, tasty entities inside.

"Would you like a jelly baby?" Sarah asked casually, to neither individual in particular. She raised the bag in the air like a knight about to drop the gauntlet.

The Doctor standing a few yards away felt his mouth drop open like a broken draw bridge. He hissed in disbelief, "How can you possibly think of jelly babies at a time like this?"

The Doctor nearest Sarah, whilst making a grab for a red jelly baby, understood in an instant what the girl was up to.

_Oh, well done, my clever, clever Sarah Jane!_

Sarah looked triumphant as she pocketed the bag. "You can give up the act now. The _real _Doctor never says no to a jelly baby!"

There was total silence for a few, unending moments. After an indefinite amount of utter stillness, the other Doctor growled deep in his throat. It was a bestial sound of defeat, disbelief, and rage that made Sarah's knees knock together and raise the hairs on the back of her neck. Before her eyes, the impostor melted away until the curly haired image of the Doctor had been replaced by the form of the peroxide-blond, hawkish man who still haunted the blackest corners of Sarah's mind.

"Oh no." She uttered under her breath, latching onto the Doctor's tatty old coat for reinforcement, suddenly thankful for his forceful grip on her arm. "Not you."

"I was never really gone." He crooned in his eerie voice. It was like listening to a moaning gust of wind: Sarah knew what it sounded like, but couldn't begin to describe it pointedly. The man continued, "I can appear as anything: a detached shadow, a snowflake, a passing thought. This form is a personal favorite of mine, however. It holds so much . . . _meaning_ to me."

"Interesting choice." The Doctor gave the body a cursory glance, ultimately knitting his brows in a frown of disapproval. "Not as charming or as charismatic as myself, of course, but I can see why Sarah was . . . ah . . . drawn in."

He let go of his companion and gently nudged her taught fingers off of his forearm. The Doctor then walked forward until he was standing nose-to-nose with his illusionary counterpart. He met the creature's icy, crystalline eyes with a look of disdain, and asked quietly, "Who are you?"

"I am the Chimera."

"Chimera." The Doctor muttered under his breath, "Not the lion-headed, hoofed miscegenation from Greek mythology, I'm willing to bet."

Chimera smirked, revealing two sets of gleaming white teeth, as thin and sharp as surgical needles. In the man's face, it was a frightening feature. Sarah nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Hardly." He chuckled, "I am nothing and everything, what you wish was true and what you fear most in the entire cosmos. I am visions. I am dreams. I am nightmares. I am the Chimera, the being of no being."

"'Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear.' Stephen King, if I'm not mistaken." The Doctor returned Chimera's gruesome grin with a good-natured smile of his own. "Fortunately for me and my young friend here, I'm good with problems that defy logic. You're nothing a little well-strung ingenuity can't solve."

"You said yourself, Doctor, that logic merely allows one to be wrong with authority. Whatever reality you believe in is gone. Your science and reason are little more than abject insignificancies. You have nothing. This is _my_ domain!"

"See, that's where you're quite wrong." The Doctor kept his smile, but his shoulders stiffened and the lines on his face hardened. "I am never more dangerous than when the odds are against me."

"Understand this, Chimera." The Doctor leant forward until his curly bangs brushed the creature's forehead. It was an imposing stance, but Chimera barely budged. "You've harmed someone I care about, and you've placed both of our lives in danger. That puts you in a very, _very_ bad position."

Chimera sneered, but with its thin, bloodless lips and pointed teeth the expression looked more like an animal snarl, "You're in no position to threaten me, Time Lord. As for young Sarah . . ."

He snapped his fingers, and the air around Sarah folded and snapped like an aggravated lasso, stretching and binding until it had enveloped everything within its boundaries. With a hushed whoosh of air, Sarah vanished.

The Doctor felt his stomach lurch. The infinitesimal moment of stunned hesitation was replaced by a flurry of movement as the Doctor rushed forward to grab ahold of Chimera's lapels. To his dismay, the fiend snapped out of existence and the Doctor's hands closed around cold, empty air.

"Where is she?" The Doctor bellowed, barring his impressive set of tombstone teeth in blind fury, "WHERE IS SHE?"

"I've placed her a brief moment out of sync with the time-stream." An amused voice answered, seeming to reverberate from every direction, "You cannot see her, touch her, or sense her in any manner, but she is unharmed. It will remain that way so long as you cooperate."

The Doctor banged his fist against an open palm to control his emotions, deciding that any antagonistic action on his part would only get Sarah into trouble.

"What do you want from me?" He asked weakly.

"Nothing of consequence, Doctor." There was a brief spacial disturbance and Chimera reappeared directly behind the Doctor, in the same form as before. "I just want to talk. It is rare that I, a wholly nomadic entity, have the pleasure of encountering a being of almost equal intelligence to myself."

"_Almost equal intelligence_? You flatter yourself, Chimera." The Doctor walked around in short circles, kicking the trailing ends of his scarf over his shoes. It certainly wasn't the smartest thing to do, but the Doctor couldn't help bamboozling his adversary. He shot the Chimera a cheeky, insubordinate snort. "You're nothing more than a mind parasite! A brain-burrowing bug!"

Chimera's left cheek twitched, and the Doctor suddenly stopped walking.

He felt his hearts quicken; the two organs that had been all but nonfunctional for the last Rassilon-knows-how-long were now beating well beyond his bodily tolerance level. It was the same debilitating sensation that had plagued him in the presence of the Caretaker, now intensified tenfold. The pain grew quickly, spreading from his bicardiovascular cavities until it encompassed every nuance of his body. The Doctor gasped, clutching at his chest as the agony slowly brought him to his knees. His hearts raced each other and refused to slow down. He grit his teeth against the debilitating torture, but the Doctor refused to revoke his earlier insults. His eyes were stinging with tears his pride forbade him to shed.

"It's not real." The Doctor gasped through tremors of pain, "It's all an illusion. _It's not real._"

Chimera stood auspiciously above the fallen Time Lord, now curled into a fetal position in the snow. He clucked his tongue in disapproval, as if scolding a disobedient, benighted child.

"Would you stand by that statement so boldly if it were Sarah lying there in her death throws instead of yourself? I assure you, this is all very, very real."

The Doctor could only manage a feeble shake of his head, but its meaning was clear enough.

Chimera released his hold, and the pain finally subsided. The Doctor flopped on his back, catching his breath while hastily unbuttoning his vest. His myriad articles of clothing suddenly seemed very tight. The Time Lord's vision danced with red and black spots before clearing again, only to find he was staring up at the leering face of the Chimera.

"I told you, Doctor," he said, feigning exasperation, "I only wanted to talk."

The Doctor sighed hollowly, "Was all of that really necessary?"

"I do not tolerate insubordination, Time Lord. I need Miss Smith, but yours is a life I could easily snuff out, if I so wished it."

"Point taken." The Doctor got to his feet, wincing. He realized that centuries worth of getting tortured by alien baddies was probably taking its toll. He certainly wasn't as young as he used to be . . .

A thought occurred to him through the subsiding waves of pain. "Why Sarah? Why not me?"

Chimera gave an inconsequential shrug but his speech was hesitant, "Gallifreyans give me . . . indigestion. Whereas humans make for plentiful stock."

"Stock? _Stock_? Sarah's a person, not a sheep!"

"The difference is of little importance to me, Doctor. Food is food."

"That's obscene!" The Doctor protested, "You can't just harvest sentient life-forms and snack on them like a bag of jelly babies!"

"Your idea of energy ingestion is a crude obloquy for what measures I take to survive," Chimera spat contemptuously, "I do not feed on the physical facets of my prey. I feast on the bioelectrical energy originating from the limbic systems of their brains."

"Ah ha!" The Doctor snapped his fingers and fixed Chimera with a boggling grin.  
"So that's the reason for it all! The human mind is at its most vulnerable in its state of phasic REM sleep, so by inducing an unconscious Sarah to a series of tumultuous, helter-skelter phantasms you're stimulating the limbic portion of her brain, and therefore . . . her emotions! You feed on feelings! Killing me invoked sorrow, the ghost of her younger self invoked regret, the fight invoked anger, the clown mirage invoked terror, Harry the Psychiatrist invoked frustration, and the kiss invoked love! You really were running the emotional gauntlet with Sarah's feelings, old fellow."

"As your former incarnation would say . . . top-of-the-class." Chimera congratulated sarcastically.

The Doctor scrutinized his adversary, taking in every detail of his angular physique. "Speaking of the devil, why did you tell Sarah that you were appearing as a mix of my third and current incarnations?"

"Because that is the form I have taken."

"No, it's not." The Doctor gestured dramatically over himself, and then over Chimera. "Oh, I agree. You are appearing as me. But not the '_me_' Sarah knows."

"You're too young, for one. My former persona was an old gray popinjay, whereas you're barely out of proverbial diapers! Your 'I'm a ghost from the middle of regeneration' baloney may cut it with Sarah, but you'll find that I'm not so gullible."

"What are you suggesting, Time Lord?"

"You _are_ a younger me." The Doctor affirmed, "But you are appearing as my first incarnation! I looked like that when I was a young man, just about wrapping it up at the Academy. I . . . _borrowed _the TARDIS in that body. That was, oh, 500-something years ago. Which begs the question . . ."

The Doctor started to circle around Chimera. He was getting in his element: antagonize the enemy, play the fool, offer them a jelly baby (_a la_ Sarah), and then show them you're not as thick as you come off!

"Where did you get knowledge of that form? If you say you're a creature of the abstract, a being that feeds off the mind, you must have acquired knowledge of your guises from whomever's mind you currently inhabit, yes?"

Chimera's shard-like eyes narrowed on the Doctor suspiciously. He continued . . .

"Sarah wouldn't know what I looked like back then! And then there's this _charming_ setting of yours! Sarah wouldn't have knowledge of the planet Ventari, the snowy world from which you modeled this dreamscape. So, logically, you are not in Sarah's mind at all. Which begs the second question . . . whose mind _are_ you in? My Caretaker friend up there," the Doctor jabbed his finger towards the sky, "says you established a telepathic field around Sarah and myself and are overstimulating our nervous systems. You had to find a host to do this. It wasn't me. It wasn't Sarah. So who was it?"

Chimera sneered, "You think you're so clever, Doctor. Yet you miss the details that are blatantly displayed right before your eyes. You are so blind to the obvious."

Realization dawned on the Doctor. He hoped his sneaking suspicion was simply the product of an overactive, overstressed imagination. If his deductions turned out to be true, which they invariably would, then the implications were almost too horrible to think about.

"You're not . . ."

"Yes, Doctor!" Chimera closed his pale blue eyes. When he opened them again, they were glowing a blinding, otherworldly azure-streaked gold, blazing and powerful and yet . . . eerily familiar.

"I am the TARDIS."

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	15. Chapter 15: Beyond the Brink

_In which the Doctor meets his future . . . _

* * *

"The TARDIS?"

Chimera gave a smirk of confirmation.

"_My _TARDIS? But . . . but that's stealing!" The Doctor cried in indignation.

"I am not merely controlling the _mind_ of your time capsule, Doctor. Nothing so crude." Chimera boasted, a cruel smile tugging at the corners of his bloodless lips, "I have _become_ your time capsule! Her essence is now my own! I see everything; all of space and time in its infinite complexity and majesty. The enormity and power of reality itself is mine to control! It is comparable to chess, is it not? I always know the moves and the strategies of the puny beings seeking to imbue themselves upon the fabric of existence. Nothing can surprise me and nobody can beat me, because I have already foreseen their flaws. I see _your_ flaws, Doctor, trying to battle fate in the hope of trying to turn yourself, a mere mortal, into a God. Who are you to dictate life and death in the affairs of others?"

The Doctor glowered. "Save it. I have been asked that question many times before by beings more powerful and more terrible than the likes of you."

"Indulge my unworthy curiosity, then: what do you have to say for yourself?" whispered Chimera.

"I sweep it under the carpet and worry about it another day." The Doctor finished cheerily, his mood swinging drastically in the other direction, "Now, given that we've said our hellos and gloated to the point where both of us despise one another unconditionally, can you give Sarah back?"

"Why should I? I will certainly not comply at your beck-and-call."

"_Aw_," The Doctor warbled in falsetto, "_is the wee wittle TARDIS being petty and jealwous like a wittle schoolgirl?_ You may be one of the most advanced pieces of technology the universe has ever known AND a sadistic psychotropic psychopath, but you're still susceptible to even the most human of emotions."

A blood vessel bulged on Chimera's forehead. He bared his pointed teeth like a rabid animal. "You dare to insult me!"

"Yes, _I dare to insult you_!" The Doctor raised himself to his full, towering height, and announced, "I don't care who you are: the Chimera, my TARDIS, or His Majesty the High Lord President of Gallifrey, I will defy you with every fibre of my being until I am guaranteed my companion's safe return and the discontinuation of your vile existence from this universe or variation thereof!"

"You will regret that slander, Doctor!" Chimera snarled, his pallor features purple with livid rage.

"I do not fear you." The Time Lord crossed his arms in stalwart defiance. "I do not fear you because your own boastful arrogance will bring about your own destruction. You are too proud for your own good! The TARDIS is no God, and neither are you! And last time I checked, TARDIS or otherwise, mortals still bleed."

Chimera howled, "Hollow threats coming from a man hovering on the brink of total annihilation! I will kill you, insolent louse, and then I will drain every vestige of feeling from your companion, plunge her into sufferings beyond her mortal comprehension, before I kill her, too."

"**For I am Chimera! I possess the soul of a TARDIS and the power of all of time and space! Feel my wrath, Time Lord!**"

The Doctor screamed as a knife blade plunged itself into his skull. From the split in the bone, hundreds of grief-ridden ghosts flooded into his mind. Some of the voices he recognized, but many he did not. They cried with their bodies and their souls, pleading for the attention of one man, screaming a name that meant so much to them and yet nothing at all . . .

* * *

_ Please, don't die_

* * *

_You always know. You just can't be bothered to tell anyone. It's like it's some kind of a game and only you know the rules_

* * *

_You treat everybody and everything as something less important than yourself_

* * *

_Oh, there you go, off walking in eternity again. Well, eternity can just bloody well stand still for a minute. Only reason you keep walking like that is 'cause you're afraid of what might hit you if you stopped_

* * *

_I almost wish I hadn't met you. You turned me into a good man_

* * *

_ I don't suppose you can even remember your family_

* * *

_A thing that looks like a police box, standing in a junk yard, it can move anywhere in time and space_

* * *

_ Look after him; he gets into the most terrible trouble_

* * *

_What's wrong with you?! You've saved the universe before, so do it again, the only way how_

* * *

_God knows I've hated that man, but right now, I love him. You know why? Because he sent you home_

* * *

_He's fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever_

* * *

_Splendid fellow, all of them_

* * *

_ Everyone knows that everyone dies, but nobody knows it quite like the Doctor_

* * *

_I love you_

* * *

_Time can be rewritten_

* * *

"What are you doing to me?" The Doctor collapsed to his knees and clutched at his temples, attempting in vain to silence the thousands of shrieking voices inside his head.

Chimera placed an index finger under the Doctor's chin and tilted his head skyward. He spoke softly and calmly, but his voice was as sharp as chipped ice, "I am letting you listen, so hear well, Time Lord. These are the screams of the people you have known, you know, and whom you have yet to meet. They are the voices of your friends and companions throughout the ages. These are the people whose lives will be ripped apart by the murderer who calls himself the Doctor. Even your own race will not be safe from the slaughter."

"Please, stop it! Shut them up! Shut them ALL up!" He begged.

"I want there to be no doubt of the power I am capable of wielding, Doctor. I am your TARDIS; I see your future and the terrible catastrophe that must come full-circle before you can face your destiny. War is coming. An unimaginable, horrific war unlike anything the universe has ever seen. You will fight, and you will kill. I asked you who you thought you were that you could decide life or death in the affairs of others, and you didn't have an answer. Well . . ." Chimera knelt and whispered in the Doctor's ear, "I'm giving you your answer. I am showing you _what you really are_."

The Doctor couldn't stand it. He felt as thought his head were bursting apart, as if millions of telepathic impulses were being fed directly into his brain. He felt horror, anger, grief, despair, heartbreak, regret, guilt, fear, and fury raging through his mind and threatening to overwhelm him in an emotional tidal-wave. An entire universe of nightmares had suddenly descended upon the defeated Time Lord, plunging him into dark, twisted chaos.

"I'm sorry." The Doctor sobbed, his great blue eyes liquid with tears. He could see them all; hundreds of people he had known and would come to know. He felt as though he were living all of his lives at once, as if he were the embodiment of so many people sharing the same name: Doctor.

He could see the faces of his beloved companions, all of them, imploring him to come back to them, to remember them, to love them again,

"I'm sorry for giving up on you, Peri." He murmured as their faces flashed before his eyes, "I'm sorry for making you wait, Amelia. I'm sorry for taking away your innocence, Victoria. I'm sorry for failing to appreciate you, Liz. I'm sorry for abandoning you, my dear Ace. I'm sorry for breaking your heart, Rose and Charley and Martha and Sarah."

"Oh Sarah." The Doctor dug his hands into the dense forest of his curls, clawing at his scalp. For a brief second, he remembered his own identity, and that of his current companion. He saw what terrible thing he would do to her, what terrible thing he _had_ to do to her, and it tore at his hearts. "Please forgive me, Sarah Jane Smith."

The Doctor, overwhelmed with horror and despair, retreated into the dark parts of his consciousness, seeking to find solace in the things he had chosen to forget. Instead, he found the Others . . .

* * *

_Fight him, my boy. Fight him! Don't dilly-dally now!_

_ Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. You _**are**_ in a bit of trouble, aren't you?_

_Steady on, old chap. You can defeat this. Focus on me. Ignore the old gent and the clown._

You! But you're gone! I'm _ME_ now! I don't like frills and capes anymore!

_We are _**never**_ gone. We always remain a part of you. But now you have to concentrate, and fight. You possess the attention span of a Venusian infant, but we all know your stubbornness and determination are second to none._

Except to you, of course.

_Except to all of us: the irascible grandfather, the cosmic hobo, myself: the bold and daring gentlemen, and now you, the eccentric bohemian. We all know that we have the power of our wills and our reserves to fight something of this scale. It is up to you, right here, right now, to realize that and bring yourself back to reality. Hold on to the vestiges of your being that make YOU who YOU are. Hold on to the small things that define us in our fourth incarnation. Chimera is trying to confuse your perception of your own identity by subjecting you to both past memories and memories you have not yet experienced. You must fight this, and you must concentrate on the memories of your current persona._

_ Remember Davros and Sutekh and the Zygons and Harrison Chase. Remember UNIT and Brigadier Lethbridge Stewart. Remember Harry Sullivan. Remember Sarah Jane Smith. Remember the battles you have fought, the worlds you have saved, the victories you have earned, and the people you have loved. Remember YOURSELF._

Remember myself . . . I can't! I see so many people! I see so many horrible things: unescapable war and genocide and darkness and all-consuming guilt. It is a part of me! It is who I am!

_No, you curly haired nitwit! That is not you! You are the man who approaches enemies with candy and worries incessantly about his companions, though you try to hide your concern beneath witticism and sarcasm and bluster. You are capable of such fury, and capable of such love. What do you love, Doctor?_

I love my freedom. I love laughter. I love a good joke. I love jelly babies and ginger beer. I love my companions. I love Sarah, in a way.

Hang on a mo . . . Chimera has Sarah. I have to save her. That's what I'm supposed to do, that's what I always do. I have to get Sarah out of trouble. Again.

_Yes! Splendid! Don't falter now, dear fellow. _

Compassion is the link. My emotions are the link. Sarah is the link.

_Keep going. You've almost got it!_

I have to put my trust in my passions, in the things I love and hold dear to my hearts. Chimera is the embodiment of something nestled within the mind of my TARDIS. Something chaotic, born from malice and the need to conquer. Something evil. And evil encompasses everything in the universe except . . .

* * *

"Except love!" The Doctor cried out loud. Chimera shrieked and flew backwards into a snowbank.

His concentration was snapped by the Doctor's psychic lifeline. As Chimera's power wavered, Sarah was released from her imprisonment a second in the future. She popped back into existence, not hurt but looking more than a little terrified.

The Doctor was also released. He gulped in lung-fulls of air as the voices diminished and evaporated into fragments of memory. They, too, soon faded into nothingness, and were forgotten. The Doctor sat up and got to his feet, and took a moment to savor his small victory against the entity before him.

"Mortals still bleed, Chimera." Breathed the enraged Time Lord, approaching his enemy with warlike eagerness.

"I have chosen my weapon."

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	16. Chapter 16: From Hell's Heart

_From Hell's heart, I stab at thee . . . _

* * *

The Doctor knelt and considered Chimera. "You don't understand, do you?"

A snarl. "You are nothing but a naive, arrogant, hated old man. You cannot defeat me!"

"Nothing is invincible, Chimera. Nothing is eternal, and nothing lives forever. Everything and everyone dies in the end. Including you. Especially you."

Chimera was tired, but he was not entirely deprived of strength. He leapt to his feet in one, powerful upward thrust and landed facing the Doctor. His eyes were again glowing with the otherworldly golden nether of the TARDIS. His hatred and rage were barely contained.

"You are telepathically connected to your TARDIS." Chimera hissed, "The perception of pain I can generate in your mind will rip your nervous system into millions of inconsequential shreds!"

"You're right."

Both men turned, to find that Sarah had spoken. Her voice was wavery and broken, but laced with an undertone of her old resilient spirit.

She continued, "The Doctor _is_ connected to the TARDIS. I don't understand _how _exactly, but it gives the Doctor an advantage over you, Chimera."

"What are you blathering about, you stupid girl?" The phantom barked impatiently.

"Sarah's correct." The Doctor latched on to his companion's train of thought. "You _can_ inflict pain upon my mind by merely thinking it and projecting it along the artron energy link between myself and the TARDIS. However, the process works vice-versa."

"You, Chimera, are a creature born from negative impulses, from the primordial _stuff_ that powers every malevolent feeling and cruel action. You are the paramount example of a being that is truly evil, because you simply don't have the capacity to be otherwise! Benevolent feelings are completely alien to you. You cannot process love, or passion, or friendship, because it does not exist in your perception of reality. Therefore, your conscious refuses to accept it, throwing your mind into an overpowered state of refutation. By reversing the process and projecting intense sensations of benevolent emotion along the artron energy link, I can turn the tables and override your _own_ nervous system!"

Chimera laughed, genuinely amused, "If it is to be a battle of wits, Doctor, what chance do you have against me? I am a TARDIS, you are nought but an old, bumbling, forgotten renegade whose good fortune has reached its end."

"Ah, but I am far more than just a renegade." The Doctor smiled a smile the size of a cantaloupe rind, "I am a Time Lord, one superbrain amongst millions of other superbrains. If I were to draw on the strength of my brothers and sisters on Gallifrey, if millions of incomprehensible geniuses were to be connected as one entity and concentrate their combined might against you, what chance would you have then?"

"Oh, Sarah!" The Doctor chortled, his face completely set and straight, "Would you be so kind as to kiss me, please?"

Sarah's jaw scraped her toes. "Who, _me_?"

He ran a hand through his hair in annoyance and whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "Unless there's someone else here named Sarah, which there's not. Consider: the most benevolent sensations in the universe are love and friendship. To completely override Chimera's nervous system, I need to generate a single release of positive endorphins and project it along the artron energy link to my TARDIS. A kiss should do it."

Sarah continued to stare, slack-jawed.

"It's not like you haven't done it before, you know." Pouted the Doctor.

"That was only to prove a point!" She muttered. Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment.

"Interesting way to go about doing it."

"Oh, button it! Don't act like you hated it!"

"Well, I wouldn't be asking you to do it again if I'd hated it, now would I? That would defeat the purpose."

"Purpose?" Huffed Sarah, crossing her arms in sudden frustration. "You always have to have an ulterior motive, don't you?"

"Sarah, if you kissed me to prove a point, then you, too, were acting from ulterior motives. Therefore, unless you conform to the notion of hypocrisy, you have no logical basis on which to accuse me of committing actions rooted in anything other than what your actions were rooted in _in the first place_! It was Toba Beta that said, 'Your hypocrisy insults my. . .'"

"Do me a favor, Doctor."

"What?"

"Shut up."

Sarah, taking ahold of the Doctor's scarf, gently pulled his head low and prepared to meet his lips.

Then she froze.

Her eyes widened, and she gasped as if something cold and sharp had been thrust into her skin. She shivered, and her upper epidermal temperature plummeted. Her grip on the Doctor's scarf tightened; fingers interwove with yarn until the two were quite thoroughly ensnared.

"Sarah?" The Doctor's face was barely inches from her own, but she gazed straight through his forehead and into the far distance. He might as well have been invisible.

Unbeknownst to the Doctor, the thin, pallor figure of the Chimera shimmered and vanished into the night, leaving nothing but the ghost of a wicked, cruel laugh. The figure of the Doctor's younger self was dead.

But the Chimera was still very much alive.

"Sarah!" The Doctor prodded, more urgently, "What's the matter?"

"_Nothing is the matter, Doctor_. _Nothing at all._" Sarah smiled a broad, wide smile, and the sight of it formed a lump in the Time Lord's throat.

Her mouth was filled with razor-edged teeth, as sharp as cut diamond.

"Oh, Sarah. Not you . . ."

"_I have transferred myself_." She ran an icy finger along the contours of the Doctor's jaw, almost affectionately, if not for the fact that the Time Lord could detect no comfort in the gesture. Only cold, detached amusement, like a scientist observing a rare specimen.

"_I am Sarah now. Chimera and I are one, and I am going to kill you, Doctor, slowly and intimately. You will not fight back because every fibre of your being refuses to harm me in retaliation._"

"Yes, Sarah, or Chimera, or whomever you are." The Doctor looked down at his feet to avoid meeting Sarah's chipped-glass eyes, full of so much rage and years of hatred. "I won't harm you. I can't touch you, because I swore on my lives that I never would."

"_Your emotions make you weak, Doctor. That's why you hide them under layers of bluster and pompous self-absorption. It is better to lose someone and feel nothing, than to lose someone and care. Indifference lessons the pain, does it not_?"

"We all must find our ways of dealing with our own personal suffering, Sarah."

She bared her teeth and untangled her hands from the Doctor's scarf. Meticulously, she sealed her petite fingers around his throat. The Doctor, of course, did not budge. "_You have not known true, unending personal suffering as I have_._ You don't know what it's like to endure the desolation and the silence for endless eternities, festering in the dark until all you know is anger and hatred for creatures who cannot comprehend the pain._"

"_You may have had a telepathic connection to the TARDIS, but you hold no such advantage over me. The Chimera will live on, because the last thing you will see in this life is the image of your best friend taking pleasure in your death_._ Only then will you know the true meaning of pain._"

"No, Sarah." The Doctor's eyes were welling up. He rested his free hands on her shoulders. He did not make an effort to push her away, only to reassure himself of the solidarity of Sarah's form, despite Chimera's dominance. "The last thing the two of us will see in this life is the extent of the Chimera's screams."

Suddenly, Sarah did scream. She wailed as angry black light billowed forth from her mouth and eyes, enshrouding the entire world in deep shadow. She stumbled back from the Doctor, clutching at her head in utter disbelief. For the first time, the essence of the Chimera felt truly, terribly frightened.

"_WHAT HAVE YOU DONE_?!" Sarah shrieked.

"You're have warped yourself within a human mind, Chimera." The Doctor informed his adversary sadly. "You told me that you were a nomadic entity, who had long searched for a creature of equal intelligence to your own. You were not talking about me, you were talking about the TARDIS. The truth is: you only needed the TARDIS because of the amount of neurological energy she was capable of providing you. You left the safe abode of my time ship and now Sarah's mind cannot sustain you. You are dying."

"_YOU ARE LYING! I CANNOT DIE! I AM IMMORTAL!_"

"Everything has its time, Chimera, and everything ends."

Sarah shadowy, dark form blazed red, as if she were burning up from the inside. Her voice suddenly dropped twenty decibels, and took on an accent the Doctor did not recognize. Her voice, the true voice of the Chimera, was like enunciated thunder, "_Mark my words, Doctor. You will pay for this! I am still in her mind. If I am to die, then Sarah Jane Smith will die with me!_"

"Not if I have anything to do with it." The Doctor gave a wave, and turned on his heel, "Goodbye, Chimera. Go back to where you came from. Go back to Hell."

"DOCTOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRR!"

There was a scream, magnified tenfold by the sheer disbelief and enragement of the creature who elicited it. There was a light, brighter than a dying star turned supernova, that encompassed the entire world and forced the Doctor to avert his eyes. The shrieks multiplied as Chimera's many forms and guises all felt the oncoming approach of death. Phantoms existing beyond the scope of understanding faded into eternity as their master was destroyed. It was such chaos as the universe had never before known.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, it was over.

There was only silence, and the everlasting darkness.

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	17. Chapter 17: An End

**An End, but not 'The' End. Not the definite article, you might say**

_Hail the vanquished, honor the fools . . . _

* * *

The blinding light sputtered out and died, and the long, furious screaming slowly faded into thick silence. Sarah was left in total blackness. It was a never ending, inky gloom that defied all logical attempts to place up and down, left and right. Sarah's eyes, back to their normal, liquid brown, were open, but the difference in optical perception was so inconsequential it was barely worth acknowledging. She had half a mind to believe she was dead, if not for the icy chill of the Doctor's hands grasping her wrists.

_Damn you_.

"What did you do to me?" She whispered hoarsely, "What the hell did you do to me?!"

"Sarah, I'm so, so sorry. It was the only way."

"You put him in my head! You let him inside me!"

"I know, Sarah."

"He was _me_. It was so horrible, as if my mind had been wiped clean to make way for every vestige of anger conceivable! All I wanted to do was kill, rip and tear and destroy until the end of time! How could you do that to me?"

"Trust me when I say it was necessary. I couldn't hope to win a mind grabble with Chimera while he possessed the might of a TARDIS, so I persuaded him to change hosts."

"What about the Time Lords," Sarah insisted, "you said that if you could link your mind to theirs . . ."

"Sarah, I am an outcast, a renegade who has brought nothing but shame and dishonor to Gallifrey. Do you really think they would have helped me?"

"Chimera seemed to think they would."

"Yes, lucky he fell for that, wasn't it?"

Her anger skyrocketed. "You bluffed him! You put my life on the line in the hopes of carrying out a bloody bluff!"

He pursed his mouth. "It worked, didn't it?"

"You didn't know that at the time! I could have been trapped with Chimera forever! I could have killed you, you big dolt!"

"But you didn't. I had long suspected that Chimera needed a substantial source of neurological energy for a food base. Why else would he go for something as powerful as a TARDIS? Your mind was simply not enough to sustain him. It's like putting a 220 voltage European plug into a 110 voltage American outlet: _ka-poof_!"

Sarah considered this. She wanted to stay angry at the Doctor, but she found that his actions _had_ made a kind of odd sense. His reasoning was sound, even if his execution had been a bit unorthodox, not to mention extremely risky. Nevertheless, Sarah admitted to herself, she probably would have done the same thing.

"What happens now?" She was whispering. The darkness surrounding them seemed to have a dampening effect on her voice.

The Doctor, however, had no qualms about speaking at his usual decibel level. "Psychic transferences aren't meant to last forever, you know; the telepathic connection between my consciousness and yours is beginning to break. Can you feel my heartsbeat through my wrists, Sarah?"

She nodded affirmation.

"My bodily functions are starting up. That is because I am becoming a palpable entity again."

"You're becoming real?"

"The Chimera's hallucinatory travesty in the dream interface of your brain is collapsing. My psychic projection can't exist beyond the boundaries of the Chimera's dreamworld. If my consciousness is still here when the interface disappears completely, our minds will be irreparably warped together in a terminal psychic metacrisis."

"Not good?"

"Not good at all."

"Well, if everything is back to normal and Chimera's safely taken care of, why haven't you left sooner? No offense or anything, but I don't entirely fancy being brain-linked to a Time Lord for the rest of my life."

Sarah's flippancy was lost on the Doctor. Although she couldn't see him, she could feel him tense with apprehension. The grip on her wrists got a fraction of a degree tighter; his heartsbeat sped up.

"Sarah," the Doctor began, "the release isn't going to be as easy as it seems. It's not like walking through a door between one room and another. It's incredibly complicated and . . . well . . . ah . . ."

Sarah sighed through her teeth, annoyed at the Doctor's sputtering and at her own naivety. She should have realized that this wasn't going to go as smoothly as she'd hoped. Even at the end of all they'd been through, one hurdle remained. "What's really wrong, Doctor? Tell me the truth."

His hearts sank. There was no avoiding Chimera's final trap, but he, like the old fool he was, thought that if he could keep Sarah ignorant of the threat, the threat would somehow relieve itself.

_Your foolish sentimentality at its finest, Doctor . . ._

Sarah wouldn't be so easily satisfied with him skirting the issue with whimsical yarns. She had the right to know the truth, no matter how condemnatory.

"You never miss a trick, do you, Sarah Jane? Well . . . to put it bluntly, my mind in yours is acting as a damming agent."

"A _damning_ agent?"

"D-A-M-M-I-N-G. As in beavers. The presence of my superior Time Lord consciousness in your amygdala . . ."

"Braggart."

" . . . is blocking the residual effects of the damage Chimera has inflicted upon your subconscious mind. I am preventing the repercussions of his final act of malevolence from turning you into a brainless vegetable."

"Wait . . . if that means what I think it means . . ."

He sounded pained. His words spilled out in a breathless cascade, "If I break my psychic connection with you and release my restraint on Chimera, the extreme bioelectrical feedback of his 'death throws' will overrun your nervous system and drag any vestige of your consciousness down into oblivion with him. Chimera was a part of you at the time of his death. His ensnarement in your mind is so complex that if he dies, you will die too."

Sarah couldn't help but catch her breath. She didn't want to believe it, but the Doctor's terminal prediction did make a twisted kind of sense. Chimera had struck her as the kind of creature that would never take 'No' for an answer, a creature that would always have the final laugh.

"Is there any chance for me, Doctor?" Sarah asked quietly.

"A _minuscule_ chance." Sarah could feel the brush of his curls as he vigorously shook his head in irritation, "But it's an incalculably risky one, and would be _incredibly_ painful. You could attempt to fight the assault through sheer willpower, but I don't think your mental faculties would be strong enough to hold out against the onslaught of directed neurological energy."

"Believe what you like, Doctor!" Sarah was angry at his chauvinistic, patronizing attitude. Why did he always have to treat her like a child? "As I see it, the options are this: stay linked until the both of us wither away into brainless vegetables, or risk disconnection and risk only _me_ withering away into a brainless vegetable. From a logical standpoint, the choice is obvious!"

"The choice is most certainly _not_ obvious, Sarah!" The Doctor snapped, "I will not risk you dying at the hands of Chimera for a 'slim and none' chance of survival!"

Sarah persisted, steel in her words, "Doctor, if we don't do it we'll both die! At least if we disconnect you will survive and I'll still have a _chance_! Albeit a slim chance, but a chance all the same!"

"Sarah, listen to me. If we die through psychic metacrisis, the end will be quick and painless, like falling asleep. If you die from fighting Chimera, the end will be _excruciating_! He will open the floodgates on every torture he can concoct in order to distract your concentration and snap your willpower! All the illusions, all of the nightmares you have faced will be peanuts compared to what he will do to you! He will _break _you! I _WILL NOT_ allow that to happen!" Roared the Doctor.

Sarah exploded, her patience finally at its wit's end, "BUGGER IT ALL, DOCTOR! Will you stop being so damn emotional for once in your lives and get it through your thick skull! _THIS IS THE ONLY WAY_!"

The Doctor swallowed his words, his mouth snapping shut like an admonished teenager's. All stubborn fight fled from him in the wake of Sarah's rage. He had never heard her that angry before. Granted, they had bickered in the past; he had annoyed her, she had irritated him, he had confused her, she had positively boggled him. However, never before had she been outright, completely, thoroughly _furious _with him.

"Sarah . . ." The Doctor started to say, but was cut short by the icy edge of his companion's words,

"Don't '_Sarah_' me, Doctor! You're a smart man, you know what has to be done. I know that you have your own set of fundamental values: explore the universe, fight injustice, eat jelly babies, and save Sarah. I know that you're trying to follow _your_ values, but I'm telling you now . . . I have _my own_ set of fundamental values, too! They include loyalty, friendship, courage, and believing in your dreams. They also include having the capacity to care about someone more than you care about yourself, and being willing to do _anything_ to keep that someone safe. If we stay together, we both die. The end. _Fin_. But if I take my chances against Chimera, alone, I at least have a chance of survival."

"And you will live. That makes any risk that lies ahead worth taking."

The Doctor was stunned into a humble silence. Sensing his shock, Sarah pressed on,

"Please, Doctor. Let me go."

"I can't!" The Doctor shouted, but his impressive voice dwindled as it cracked with emotion, "I just . . . . . . can't."

"Hey," Sarah retracted one of her arms, pulling the Doctor's hand along until it rested against her chest, over her single human heart, "I'm Sarah Jane Smith, remember? I'll be all right. I'm not as soft-shelled as I look."

"No." The Doctor felt a small smile creep across his features. He gave her hand a squeeze. "You _are_ Sarah Jane Smith, and you are the bravest, most wonderful person I've ever met."

"Ditto." Sarah smiled too, but grimaced when she tasted the hot, salty tears trickling down her face. She was happy the Doctor couldn't see her; she wanted to appear braver than she felt.

The Doctor fiddled with his scarf and rocked back on his heels in hesitation. Making a decision, he leant forward and planted a quick kiss on Sarah's cheek. He wrapped his long arms around her and pulled her into a close embrace.

"Godspeed, my Sarah Jane."

"Thank you." Sarah whispered hoarsely through choked-back tears. She tucked her arms under the Doctor's coat and leant her head onto his chest. His vest and scarf were scratchy against her cheek. His double heartbeat _thud-thud-thud-thudded_ in her ear.

_I love you to bits, you arrogant, infuriating, self-centered lummox._

Sarah repeated the phrase over and over again until it had solidified itself in her mind. The simple words kindled a fuzzy, warm glow in her stomach. She realized that it was something she had never thought or said outright, but had existed on the fringes of her mind for a very, very long time.

The Doctor gently unwound himself and straightened his back. He could feel his psychic chord breaking. Steeling himself against the slow sucking sensation emanating from the small of his back, opposite his navel, the Doctor glanced down to where Sarah stood. It bothered him that he couldn't see her through the dark.

"Are you sure about this?" It was a futile question; the Doctor already knew the answer. The sucking was getting stronger.

"Surer than I've ever been, Doctor."

With that, the Doctor relaxed the link tethering his psychic projection to Sarah's mind. He was violently wrenched from the fabric of Chimera's fading unconscious interface. It felt as though a harness of cloud were lifting the Time Lord up out of gravity, out of time, and out of existence. He raced further and further upward, towards a blinding white light that quickly encompassed the universe . . .

* * *

A world away, Sarah Jane Smith unclenched her hands and glowered at an enemy only she could see.

"Okay, Chimera. I'm ready for you."

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	18. Chapter 18: Momento Mori

_Reminder's of death . . . _

* * *

"Doctor!"

The Caretaker nearly leapt out of her skin in surprise. The Time Lord flew off the gurney and clattered to his feet. The machinery fell away from his head in a metallic clatter of odd bits and pieces. His face was taught and his eyes shone with the glint of a madman. The Caretaker's bioscanners blipped away with renewed enthusiasm; the man who'd been on death's door not five hours hence was now bustling about the room with the energy of a giddy schoolboy. According to the machines, there were only residual traces of illness left in him. His hearts had stabilized, his neurological activity no longer depleted the energy of the rest of his body, and his countenance had significantly improved. Despite his state of disarray, color and vibrance had returned to the Doctor's pale, sickly complexion.

He was cured. The Doctor was going to be well again.

Overjoyed, the Caretaker glided over to bestow congratulations on a mission completed, a disaster averted, and a life saved. But, cold reality soon snapped her sense of relief; the Doctor's young friend had not budged from her place. In fact, she looked even more haggard and listless than she had but a few moments ago. Almost before the Caretaker's eyes, Miss Smith was withering away. Her skin lost its rosy complexion and waned to an unhealthy, waxy gray. Her hair dried and crinkled like old parchment. Her intakes of breath were few and far between; her heart-rate was a meager ten beats per minute.

The bright look in the Doctor's eyes wasn't one of excitement or joy. It was one of trepidation, uncertainty, and fear.

Something had gone terribly wrong.

"Caretaker, help me with this equipment." The Doctor darted around and bundled a smorgasbord of items into his arms. He took his grandiose pile of wires and knobs and dials and piled them into a heap at the foot of Sarah's gurney. The Caretaker, acting on automatic, hastily swept up the trailing ends of wire and handed them expertly to the Doctor.

He set to work assembling a crude replication of some sort of generator. The power source was little more than a metal box welded messily to the main power frame of the Caretaker's facility. Elongating from the power box were a thick set of cables fastened into a compass-like dial. It ticked away in erratic patterns like a Geiger Counter, though as to what the apparatus was measuring, the Caretaker wasn't too sure. Connected to the monitoring dial was a headset constructed of little more than a sheet of metal bent over the crown tip of a spectroscope cap.

All this the Doctor assembled with the speed of an automaton. The Caretaker could only gape in amazement and dutifully pass him equipment when he needed it. Within minutes, the cap was wired into the facility's spectrography imager and placed atop Sarah's head. The Doctor carefully pressed the suction-cup electrodes onto the unconscious girl's temples.

Flipping the 'On' switch, the Time Lord exclaimed breathlessly, "The device works to boost the neurological activity of her brain. The excess stimulus should translate into power to be used against Chimera."

The Caretaker was trying desperately to keep pace. "Whom, or what, is Chimera?"

"Oh, never mind that now." He shooed the question away with a flick of his hand.

The Doctor leant until his cheek lay suspended about an inch above Sarah's nose and mouth. He hovered there for a few long moments while he tried to ascertain whether or not she was breathing. After more than 15 seconds of deathly silence, Sarah drew a shallow, labored wheeze. Satisfied, the Doctor managed a weak smile and patted the back of her hand.

"Good girl, Sarah." His smile morphed into an expression of unbroken concentration as he crouched, elbows on knees, and focused intently on his companion. His attention did not falter from her for an instance as he tried to access her thoughts. Much to the Doctor's chagrin, every attempt was blocked by an extremely powerful telepathic barrier buried deep in the core of Sarah's mind. Chimera wasn't letting the Doctor in.

As the Doctor knelt with his friend, the Caretaker was very quickly piecing the puzzle together. The Doctor had successfully beaten the mind virus. He was cured and in full health, but young Miss Smith was still in a most dire condition. The dying virus, 'Chimera', the Doctor had called it, seemed determined to claim one last victim.

Without warning, the bioscanners positioned around Sarah's head bleeped in protest as her weak heart began to fibrillate. Her body was thrown into a fit of spasms; her back suddenly arched into a spin-snapping bow and just as quickly crashed back onto the gurney with a _thump_. Her head rolled from side to side, and her eyes flickered behind closed lids as she battled a monster in her world of nightmares.

"No no no no NO!" The Doctor placed a well-meaning but restraining hand on Sarah's shoulder, trying to calm her. He cried, "Fight him, Sarah! FIGHT HIM!"

"What is happening?" The Caretaker asked in fright. She was one of the greatest minds in existence, an Eternal, but this case had long since gone beyond even her field of expertise.

"Sarah's nervous system is reacting to the presence of severe mental trauma," The Doctor answered grimly, "She is fighting a losing battle."

Sarah's arm violently twitched, and the side table holding the Doctor's equipment went flying across the room. The chords whipped back and the spectroscope cap fell clumsily from Sarah's head and crashed to the ground. The Doctor's lash-up was in pieces all over the floor.

He snarled, "That was no muscle spasm . . . he made her do that!"

"This 'Chimera' is sentient?"

"Of course he is! You must be blind not to see that!"

Attributing the Doctor's rudeness to severe stress, the Caretaker ignored it and politely asked, "Is there nothing we can do for her?"

The Doctor spat, "No! Any help we could have given Sarah is now lying in a gazillion pieces on the floor! She's on her own now."

"_ARG_!" Sarah let out a strangled choke. Her eyes, crimson red from hundreds of tiny, broken blood vessels, flew open and ogled at the Doctor. The veins bulged out on her neck and forehead, as if an enormous force were being pressed down onto her chest.

Then Sarah screamed.

It was an ear-splitting shriek that shattered the heart and chilled the blood. It was the embodiment of every sorrow, every pain, and every heartbreak the young woman had ever known. Every trace of grief capable of being bottled up within the human soul burst forward in a wrenching wave of inconsolable emotion.

The screaming stopped as a powerful shudder passed through Sarah's body. She slumped, limp and silent, onto the cold gurney. Her blood-stained eyes starred vacantly into empty space. They were dead eyes, seeing everything and yet nothing at all.

"Sarah!" The Doctor was on his knees in seconds, all but shouting in the girl's ear, "Don't give up, Sarah! You mustn't give up, _please_!"

She remained cold and unresponsive. The bioscanner let out the monotonous _bleeeeep_ of a stopped heart.

"Oh no, you don't!" The Doctor, glaring at the bioscanner, propped himself up and folded his hands over one another. He placed them over Sarah's breastbone and began to administer CPR.

"Don't you have any sort of emergency defibrillator?" The Doctor cried out in earnest.

The Caretaker could have killed herself for the damning statement she was about to deliver, "I do not. I own no equipment which would have allowed me to revive a dying patient."

Biting his tongue against a slew of choice words he would have loved to share at that moment, the Doctor persisted in his CPR. As if mocking his efforts, the bioscanner continued to _bleeeeep _away.

The Doctor growled deep in his throat, "You will not die, Sarah Jane Smith. I _will not_ let you die!"

He was tired, but the Doctor maintained his exertion with the stubbornness of a madman. He pressed on as the long, agonizing moments dragged by.

After ten minutes, sweat began to bead on the Doctor's brow and his breathing became more labored. His gangly arms were beginning to shake. Under normal circumstances, the Doctor could have maintained his resuscitation efforts indefinitely; under the circumstances following his brush with Chimera, the Doctor possessed little more strength and stamina than a sickly human.

Fifteen minutes passed with no response from Sarah. The Doctor was killing himself with the effort. To the Caretaker's horror, his nose and the corners of his eyes were beginning to bleed. The thin, globular trickles of blood were as black as tar.

"Doctor, stop!" The Caretaker burst forward and latched a wrench-like hand onto his arm.

"Not while . . . there's a . . . chance." He puffed through sharp intakes of breath. He couldn't summon the energy needed to shake off the Caretaker's hold.

"There is no chance. She is gone."

"I _refuse_ to accept that!"

"Then you are a bigger fool than you would have me believe!" The Caretaker pointed a long, slender finger at Sarah's inanimate form, "No humanoid of her respiratory composition can survive for this long without oxygen. Sarah is dead, Doctor. There is nothing more you can do."

A pause. The Doctor grinded to a shaking halt with his hands still poised an inch above Sarah's ribcage. He was quivering with exhaustion and complete disbelief; for a while all he could do was blink incomprehensibly at Sarah with cloudy, vacant blue eyes.

Even so, the Doctor was oddly serene and composed as he lowered his hands to his side. In a clumsy, awkward motion, he brushed the trails of blood away from his face. The Time Lord returned his gaze to Sarah, and regarded her with the blank, listless expression of a shock victim.

The Doctor wanted to hold her, but he couldn't bring himself to touch her. He couldn't bring himself to feel the cold lifelessness of her skin. Instead, he wrung his hands in agitation, and grieved in silence.

There were no outlandish displays of lost affection. There were no tears. He was the Doctor, and his pain was deeper and more profound than could be expressed on the surface. Acceptance refused to click in his addled mind; Sarah's death was too abhorrent, too terrible to comprehend. He thought, if he could hold on to the impossible hope of her opening her eyes, of her smiling that wonderful smile one more time, he could half believe she was still alive, somehow.

Silly him. Silly, stupid old Doctor.

"She killed her." He murmured, his words almost too soft to hear,

"She killed her."

* * *

To Be Continued . . .


	19. Chapter 19: The Day God Went Mad

**Enter Harry Sullivan. Sort of . . . **

_In the shadow of death . . ._**  
**

* * *

There are no words, in Gallifreyan, English, or otherwise, to describe the emptiness left by a lost friend. Additionally, there are no words to describe the agony that takes its place.

Despite this, the Doctor refused to remain silent.

Gently, he brushed Sarah's dry hair behind her ears and rested her hands across her chest. He closed her horribly aberrant, bloodshot eyes. Laying there with a furrowed brow on her always inquisitive face, she could have been sleeping.

It was the best he could do.

The Doctor leapt to his feet, left Sarah's bedside, and stalked away. He kept his head down and his hands jammed into his trouser pockets, not sparing a glance to the Caretaker or anything else in his way. He made it to the opposite end of the room in five, loping strides before he spun around and fixed the estranged Caretaker with a glower strong enough to melt lead.

"Where is my TARDIS?" The Doctor kept his head bowed, making his rich voice sound even deeper. His tone was calm, but tinged with a hint of something not quite friendly.

The Caretaker eyed the Time Lord warily. If she told him where his capsule was, he could very easily abandon his dead friend and run away. While it would be an obscene moral crime, it was not, technically, a violation of Sanatorium law. He was cured, therefore it was not within the Caretaker's jurisdiction to stop him if he decided to leave.

Then again, the Doctor could have some obscure, alien medicine within the confines of his ship. Perhaps, in a hope beyond hope, he had a means of bringing Sarah back, a means beyond the skill of the Eternals.

"Alcove 2B." She muttered.

The Doctor didn't acknowledge that he'd heard her. He spun on his heel, walked through the decontamination unit, and made his way to what appeared to be a large janitorial closet. Flinging the cold grey doors open with a clang, the Doctor was greeted with the friendly front side of the TARDIS, his beloved time ship.

The way he glared at it, it could have very well been a Dalek.

The Doctor stuck his hand down the front of his shirt and removed the silver chain from around his neck. He inserted the pentagonal key into the hidden lock behind the standard-issue keyhole and pushed himself into the TARDIS.

He slammed the white, double doors shut behind him and regarded the control room with unbridled malice. Angrily, he balled his fist and hit one of the roundeled depressions on the wall. Grinding knuckle against cold metal sent a quiver of sharp pain down his arm. The blow certainly hurt him more than it hurt the TARDIS, but he didn't care.

"You were the one person I could trust." The Doctor murmured, starring fixedly at the time rotor, "You were the one creature in this ridiculous universe that would never betray me. But it seems as though I was gravely mistaken. You killed her."

The central console remained motionless and irritatingly indifferent. The bone-thrumming hum of the TARDIS engines had died down to a labored groaning barely audible to even the Doctor's ears. The lighting, once so bright and friendly, was shadowy and tinged with a sickly shade of grey, like watered-down ink. The TARDIS was as weak as the Doctor himself; the two of them had suffered a tremendous blow to their minds and their bodies. But the Doctor's current sentimentalities lay in everything but empathy.

"You killed her, didn't you?" The Doctor enquired, morphing the powerful accusation into a loud question demanding an answer.

"Yeah, I suppose I did."

Despite his persistence, despite his anger, the Doctor had not expected a response. He whipped around to face a very drawn, very miffed . . . Harry Sullivan. Puzzled expression, blue navy blazer, sideburns and all. Of all people?! _Harry Sullivan_?!

"Of all forms and all guises in the history of existence, why did you have to pick that one?" groaned the Doctor.

The TARDIS snubbed, and Harry's face curled into one of disapproval. She spoke with his former companion's voice, "I liked Harry. He was nice."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and gave a derisive snort, "_Nice_ is one word to describe him. _Clumsy_ is another. Bumbling, bungling, klutzy, ham-fisted, clodhopping . . ."

"And you wonder why people decide to leave you?" The TARDIS smirked with Harry's face, "Your charm is about as pleasant as a Dalek up the backside."

A withering scowl was the Doctor's only response. Not wanting to give the her the satisfaction of winding him up, the Doctor jumped back to the subject at hand, "Why did you kill Sarah?"

Sighing, the TARDIS rubbed the back of Harry's neck. "I didn't have much choice in the matter, to be brutally honest."

"There are always choices."

"You're not a fool, Doctor, so don't act like one." The TARDIS snapped, "You know that the Chimera's hold on me was as strong if not stronger than his telepathic hold over Sarah. For as long as he was inside my mind I did not possess the ability to function independently."

"How could you let that happen?" The Doctor asked in exasperation, "You're the strongest creature I know! How could you let Chimera get the better of you in the first place?"

The TARDIS, instead of responding, took an abrupt seat on the floor, and motioned for the Doctor to do the same. Warily, he obliged.

It was a strange sight: the raggedy Time Lord and the halo-like Harry Sullivan sitting cross-legged on the floor of the console room like two obedient children. _The two doctors_. The Doctor wondered, offhandedly, what Sarah would have thought if she could see him now.

Inadvertently, the Time Lord bit his lip to stifle his quivering chin.

"You always were more emotional in here, weren't you?" The TARDIS asked gently, noticing the Doctor's quiet distress.

"You feel what I feel. You tell me."

The TARDIS ran a hand through Harry's short, curly hair and admitted, "I don't pretend to understand humans, old chap. I don't pretend to understand the young people you travel with. I don't pretend to understand the complexities of their little relationships and niceties. It all seems a bit superfluous when you're someone like me. But I _do_ understand you."

The Doctor looked up sharply. His mouth pursed in a pouty frown, partly because he was still in a foul mood, mostly because he didn't like being upbraided by someone who appeared to be, on the surface, Harry Sullivan.

The TARDIS continued, "You always try to tell yourself differently, Doctor, but you need companionship. You _yearn_ for it. I do my best, under the circumstances. But, let's face it: a multidimensional, omnipotent Type 40 time travel capsule and a compulsive, flippant humanoid with a penchant for meddling don't exactly connect on much of a personal level, eh?"

"I have always considered you my dearest friend."

"Hmm . . . much as I treasure that friendship, your triages of companions over the years have had the handy knacks to fill in the spots I missed. And they've changed you, Doctor. Sometimes for the worse, but I think oftentimes for the better. That's something I could never hope to do on my own."

The Doctor fiddled with the collar of his shirt, avoiding the statement with his characteristic apathy. His face was set in a grim line of indifference, but he couldn't fool the TARDIS.

"You grieve for her, don't you?"

"She's _dead_." The Doctor barked, "Of course I'm grieving! I always miss them once they're gone. But it's worse now . . . When they leave in good faith, I always know that they're still out there, somewhere, living their lives day after day. I can always go back. I never do, but the reassurance of their presence remains. Not this time. Sarah's gone for good. _Mors ultima_. I think it's the sheer _finality_ of the situation that's so boggling to me."

"It's not the fact that Sarah is dead that causes me to grieve. All good things must come to an end; it's the nature of the universe. It's that fact that I will never see her smile, never hear her laugh, and never be on the receiving end of her snide comments again that fills me with an inconsolable sense of heartache. The little quirks that made Sarah, Sarah . . . they're gone."

The TARDIS sighed. She felt the Doctor's sorrow as if it were her own. "Would my account of what happened make it hurt any less?"

"Probably not. But it couldn't possibly make it hurt any more than it already does."

She fingered the knot in Harry's cravat, as if trying to loosen it. Curiously, the TARDIS thought out loud to herself, "How do I go about explaining this in a way you can understand?"

The Doctor's impatience got the better of him.

"Is it really _that_ complicated?" He whined.

"Blimey, did you always sound like a spoilt child?" The TARDIS sniffed in disdain. "Yes, to simply _tell_ you would be complicated. To show you . . . well . . . that's another matter entirely, old chap."

"Show me, then!" The Doctor was suddenly quite adamant about his decision, "I have to know what happened!"

Harry massaged his temples in concentration. The TARDIS added, for spite, "Your insatiable curiosity will be the death of you one of these bright days."

"It's already been the death of my best friend, thank you." The Doctor replied dryly, "I have nothing else to lose."

"Right-ho then. Here we go." The TARDIS shut Harry's eyes for a tiny moment; when they opened again, they were as gold and featureless as a red giant sun, burning with power. The TARDIS spoke with Harry's voice, but the brusque London brogue was laced with something otherworldly and powerful, a force from the farthest corners of space and time. Words and phrases that reached across countless dimensions and realities reverberated within the Doctor's mind and sent a ripple of gooseflesh down his arms.

Harry's body was still sitting cross-legged on the floor, deep in concentration, but the TARDIS was much, much further away. She existed in events that had already come to pass, using Harry's form as a receptacle. She was re-becoming Chimera . . .

"Once we encountered Chimera in deep space, it targeted the strongest mind among the three of us." The TARDIS started, Harry's voice echoing like whispers in a cathedral, "It wasn't you and it wasn't Sarah. It was me, naturally."

"Naturally." The Doctor muttered.

"It intermingled with my telepathic field and latched itself there like a bur in a girl's hair. The vile little psychotropic dust cloud slithered and expanded until it had encompassed every fibre of my mind, strangling me in its poisonous barbs. It merged with me. We became one entity, one creature full of malice and hate and evil. It's own power fused with the inestimable power of the Eye of Harmony at the heart of my transcendental shell. I was no longer myself. My identity was lost. I was Chimera. **We were one**."

Harry's eyes, which were immeasurably deeper and older than the eyes of the Harry Sullivan the Doctor had known, took on a hungry, savage light. The voice of the TARDIS through Harry's lungs got considerably more powerful.

"**I had drifted for untold millennia in the infinite silence and darkness of spacetime, starvation and destitution twisting my sanity to the point of madness. I was so angry; I wanted to destroy everything! **_**Everything**_**! Rip it apart from the inside and break every trace of light and goodness that existed, now and forever!**

** And I was hungry. Oh, so hungry! I wanted to feed on the creatures within me! Take their feelings away, so that they would know my pain! Feast on the pitiful little organisms that made their homes amidst my time capsule exterior: the antiquated, senile Time Lord and the pestilence that was that little human girl**."

The Doctor payed ever so close attention, hanging on to every word of the madman's ravings. The TARDIS had drifted from the current time and was relaying the events of the past from a non-linear perspective. The soul of the TARDIS existed in _time immemorial_.

The guise of Harry Sullivan had doubled over until his body was sheet white and tense with muscle constriction. The incredibly old, golden eyes glowed like burning coals, casting an angry, burnt orange glare over the stark white interior of the console room. Through the figure's pale skin, the energy tendrils of the Chimera/TARDIS's essence twisted and contorted in raging rivers of black and bloody maroon; it burned, glowed, and roared through Harry's transparent veins like the fires of Hell.

The Doctor found the grisly, nightmarish form of Harry Sullivan quite disturbing, but he held his composure and didn't react outwardly to the change. He had no need to fear ghosts. Chimera was dead; he had died with Sarah Jane. What was happening to the TARDIS was simply a relay of events that had already come to pass.

Harry's mouth opened, and the Chimera/TARDIS spoke again, "**I had to have them, the Time Lord and the girl. I encased them in a telepathic field that would weaken their bodies and prepare them for ingestion. I would consume them, burn out their hearts and minds and souls until there was nought left but two scorched, writhing corpses begging for mercy! Begging for death!**"

While the entranced TARDIS in Harry's body continued to rant on, the Doctor mused quietly to himself, "Even the greatest good is not immune to the greatest evil. The soul of my TARDIS was twisted and blackened by a malicious entity driven insane by millions of years worth of starvation and pain and isolation in the vacuum of space . . . unable to die . . . unable to slate its hunger.

"When Chimera encountered the TARDIS, a living time capsule of almost unlimited power, possessing energy encompassing the scope of time and space, it wanted to exploit its newfound omnipotence and deliver its perceptions of pain to every creature it encountered, starting with me and Sarah."

"**But I couldn't!**" The TARDIS whipped Harry's head around and bore Harry's hellish eyes right into the Doctor, freezing him to the spot. "**Oh, I wanted you, Doctor!** **Your strong mind would provide not only nourishment, but knowledge, and with that knowledge, power! **But I couldn't . . ."

The TARDIS broke form for a second, briefly banishing Chimera's phantom, "The weak part of me, the entity at the heart of the time capsule, refused to destroy you. I could not have the Doctor."

"It was the most basic instinct of my TARDIS that was stopping you. She was protecting me." The Doctor clarified while splitting a proud ear-to-ear grin, "The essence of my TARDIS, buried deep within that fevered mind of yours, would not allow you to harm me. So . . . you went for Sarah instead."

Harry's face morphed into a mask of malignant cruelty. The Chimera/TARDIS laughed pitilessly as Harry sneered, "**Oh, the **_**old girl**_** was too easy! She was drowning in emotion; never had it been so simple to invade such a primitive mind and wreck havoc upon such an impressionable soul! So much feeling . . . who could have known one could hate, hope, despair, laugh, cry, and **_**love**_** in such plentitude! I almost had it all. ALL OF IT!**"

The Chimera/TARDIS spat at the Doctor, "**And then you came. You weak, disgusting creature couldn't bare to see his little Sarah Jane suffering so!**"

The Doctor steeled himself. It's not real. It's not Harry Sullivan. It's not my TARDIS. This is the voice of the Chimera long since gone.

"**Once I discovered your plan about using the power of the shared Time Lord consciousness to override my telepathic field, I knew you could destroy me.**" The Doctor decided not to mention his bluff."**So, I transferred my essence from the mind of your capsule to the dream-interface of the human's brain. If I were to die, I would not die without the pleasure of seeing her pain! And even though your TARDIS wouldn't allow me access to your mind, Doctor, I still made you suffer. I made you realize what grievous mistake you had made by venturing into Sarah's mind, and challenging me. In your naive act of valor, in your attempt to be the hero, it was **_**you**_** that killed her!**"

Suddenly, Harry shrieked, "**AND NOW SHE'S MINE! SHE'S DEAD BECAUSE HER BONES CRUMPLED TO DUST INSIDE HER BLISTERING CORPSE! THE HELLFIRE MELTED HER SKIN AND SEARED HER HEART AND TORTURED HER MIND . . . AND SHE SCREAMED AND SHE SCREAMED AND SHE SCREAMED, SCREAMED, SCREAMED!**"

The body of Harry Sullivan came around with enough explosive power to send him rocketing against the far wall and the Doctor careening into the lip of the control console. Harry hit the lower roundels with a thud that would have concussed any normal human. The Doctor, removing himself from the underside of the helmic regulator, gingerly rubbed his head. His fingers ran over a nasty welt swelling up like a party popper under his thick, curly hair. _That_ was going to be sore in the morning.

As if blinking away a nightmare, Harry's eyes watered and dimmed and the angry golden glow vanished. The TARDIS looked startled, but she gave the Doctor a sheepish and most apologetic smile.

"I say, that was a bit unpleasant, wasn't it?"

"That's the understatement of the millennium." The Doctor riposted shakingly, trying to banish the screaming voice of the Chimera to the back corners of his mind. The fire of the phantom's terrible last words burned bright in his memory.

"Oh, I've really buggered it up this time." The Doctor sighed in despair. "What _have_ I done?"

"You have done what was necessary to destroy an evil even I couldn't contend with."

"But at what cost?" Demanded the Doctor, "I've lost trust in my TARDIS and my beloved best friend is dead. I've even placed the Caretaker's life in jeopardy! Chimera was right; I am no God. I have no right to gamble fate in the lives of others."

The TARDIS bowed Harry's head, as if admitting something painful, "It may be a bit of a bad time to bring it up, but the Caretaker's fate still hangs in the balance. Her destiny is not decided, but it lies in your hands, Doctor."

"No. Not again. Not ever again."

"You will not have a choice, old chap." The TARDIS insisted, "I see how this road must be trodden. When the time comes, a decision must be made, and the death of the Caretaker must come by your doing. It is how the Web of Time will be woven."

"Shut up!" The enraged Doctor pulled his arm back and balled his fist, preparing to strike the image of Harry Sullivan, "SHUT UP! I will not be the cause of any more deaths!"

"Doctor? Are you well?"

The Doctor whirled around, to face the owner of the new voice. He inwardly cursed.

The Caretaker was standing in the doorway.

* * *

To Be Continued . . .

**We're getting very close to the end now, folks**


	20. Chapter 20: Forget Me Not

**The last chapter before the epilogue. Hope you enjoy!**

_When fate comes full-circle . . . _

* * *

"Caretaker." The Doctor lowered his balled fist and gazed sadly at the newcomer. He suddenly felt weary and very tired, all fight drained from him. "What are you doing here?"

She wrung her long hands, and answered, "I heard you yelling. I thought I heard other voices as well, but it appears as though I was mistaken. You are alone."

The Doctor noticed that, too. The mirage of Harry Sullivan was gone; the essence of the TARDIS had returned to her natural, non-corporeal, multidimensional form deep in the heart of the time capsule. He and the Caretaker were alone, separated by three feet of floorspace that could have very well been the event horizon of a black hole.

"I am concerned," the Caretaker managed to say, "I am concerned for your well-being. I do not know what it is like to lose someone dear to oneself, but it is obvious that you are distressed."

"I'm managing." The Doctor said lamely.

"Forgive me if I do not take your word for it, my friend." The Caretaker replied, not unkindly.

A forced smile was the Doctor's only response. He couldn't find anything to say that would not be a lie.

"It may interest you to know that I have received a communiqué from my people," continued the Caretaker, "from the Elders."

The Doctor's blood chilled. A deep sense of dread and foreboding knotted up in his stomach.

"What did they say?"

"I was informed of my failure." She was surprisingly calm. "The Elders are not magnanimous, and neither are the rest of the Eternals. I was entrusted with watching and recording Ephemeral deaths, but not interfering with them. I have failed in that charge. By assisting you and helping you to recover, I have disobeyed my directive and therefore must be punished accordingly."

"I am sorry. I should not have gotten you involved . . ."

The Caretaker interrupted, "Oh, do not apologize, Doctor! It was my decision, one I knew I was making in direct violation of the wishes of the Eternals. Without my help and equipment, you would not have survived. However, one must be prepared to accept the consequences of one's actions."

"What will happen to you?" The Doctor feared the answer, but he had to know.

"The transcendental essence of my being, my non-corporeal body that exists in higher dimensions, will be banished from Eternity. Since I, in my natural form, am nought but a creature of pure mathematical thought, I will drift forever in the vacuum of N-Space as such. I will never die, but I will never live a full existence, either. I will be little more than a passing thought, wandering in the silence and the dark forever."

"That is appalling!" The Doctor sounded horrified, and he was. In time, the Caretaker would become just like Chimera, little more than a mind parasite driven mad from the long years of desolation.

"It is our way, Time Lord."

"Way? _Way_?! It is nothing more than a . . . than a . . . sickening excuse to bury matters under the carpet! The Eternals simply don't want to deal with one of their own who may have shown some emotion! They can't bear the thought of an anomaly in their oh-so-perfect societal system! Surely you are not going to go along with this?"

The Caretaker's answer surprised him. "No. In fact, I am not. I have a proposition to put to you, Doctor."

"Yes! Anything!"

"You may not like it. You may prefer I accept the Elders' punishment."

"Caretaker, I know what it's like to be exiled, to be all alone with no hope and no prospect of a better tomorrow. Trust me when I say this; there can be no fate worse than the one that lays in store for you."

"Even death?" Her unblinking saucer eyes bored into the Doctor, commanding his attention.

He raised a cautious eyebrow. "What are you suggesting?"

"There is a way of bringing Sarah back, Doctor. I was just too selfish and cowardly to see it before."

_Lightbulb_.

"No." The Doctor snapped, "I know what you're thinking, and the answer is no."

The Caretaker pressed on, "If I were to impart my essence, my life-force, unto Sarah, then the excess kinetic energy will restart her heart and brain function. She will regain all autonomic somatic function! She will live again!"

"But you will die!" The Doctor protested, "You would be killing yourself . . ."

". . . in order to save the life of another." She finished, "Given my own future, I would willingly lay down my life for such a cause. It is better to die a meaningful death than to live a meaningless existence."

"Meaningful death or no meaningful death, it's still death in the end!" The Doctor resigned to mutter incoherently under his breath, weighing the outcomes of the Caretaker's words. Was she being reasonable? Would death really be preferable to an eternity of lonely silence, drifting in the dark?

He knew what his own answer would be: yes. Undoubtedly. Unquestionably.

"Are you sure about this, Caretaker? You are an immortal Eternal; can you fully grasp the concept of the finality of death? There is no going back." He asked desperately.

"I would not be putting forth the suggestion if I had not already prepared myself to accept the consequences of my own counsel. But I know Sarah was a dear friend of yours; I felt it necessary to receive your approval, your consent, your . . ."

"Blessing?"

"Yes, if you wish."

The Doctor chewed anxiously on his bottom lip. He was about to give his blessing to a woman who was going to kill herself.

_Sacrifice_ herself, he corrected. She would give her life for Sarah's. She was a savior, a martyr, a woman to be honored and remembered throughout the ages, not left to drift forgotten in the never-ending darkness of deep space.

"Caretaker, when we first met, I said to you that your purpose was a lie." The Doctor put a hand on her bare shoulder, and smiled broadly. "I was so very, very wrong. You are more worthy of that title than any other being in the entire universe. You have my blessing in whatever you feel needs to be done."

"I release you from your duty, Caretaker of the Sanatorium."

He remembered the words of the TARDIS. _When the time comes, the death of the Caretaker must come by your doing. _By giving her his blessing, he had done just that.

Destiny had come full-circle.

There were tears in the Caretaker's eyes. They glittered like liquid starlight as they trickled down her face. She sighed, as if an enormous weight had suddenly been lifted off her shoulders. "Thank you, my friend. Finally, I am at peace."

The Doctor leaned forward and whispered in her ear, his deep voice a tiny notch above hypnotic, "What is your true name?"

She breathed her response, a sound like a summer breeze through wind-chimes and music over water . . .

"Laurana. My name is Laurana."

"It's beautiful."

The Caretaker, Laurana's, only response was a smile and hurried nod. There was no more to be said.

As the Time Lord and the Eternal left the TARDIS, something caught the Doctor's eye. It was a scribbled-on, watermarked piece of paper, tacked to the TARDIS door like a public service announcement. It had a small note scribbled in the top margin,

* * *

"_He didn't have the guts to give this to you himself, so I did it for him. Now go and save Sarah." ~~~ Your Always Friend_

* * *

It was a letter. Speed-reader or no speed-reader, it took the Doctor a while to peruse it as he stumbled through the scrawly, rushed handwriting . . .

* * *

_Doctor,_

_"I know Sarah and I will not be with you forever. Eventually, I'll grow old and grisly and senile and you'll still be dashing about the universe, fresh as the day you began. You'll pass on eventually, but then you'll regenerate. The cycle never ends for you. But it will end for me, sooner or later. I'll become an old, bumbling geezer before long, unable to get up his own stairs much less go gallivanting across time and space. All I ask is that you remember me. Remember everyone. We care for you more than you could possibly know, so do try to not forsake that, eh?"_

_"I know Sarah will not be coming back to Earth with me. I have made my peace with that. Just promise me that you will look after her."_

_- Harry_

* * *

"I'm sorry, Harry." He whispered, "I failed."

Laurana was far ahead of him, now. The Doctor, without another word, pocketed Harry's note and continued into the coldness of the Sanatorium.

Once the Doctor caught up, they made their way, in solemn silence, through the short corridor towards the old ward. Sarah lay on her gurney, unchanged. Her pallor was comparable to the Chimera's snowy dreamscape: cold, pale, and dead. Seeing her again brought the Doctor's pain rushing back in torrents. And there was a new emotion amidst that of heartache and grief: guilt. The Doctor had done this. He had tricked Chimera into Sarah's mind. This was his fault.

"Do what you have to." He croaked, fighting the despair that threatened to overwhelm him once again.

Laurana closed her eyes and pressed her three fingertips onto the pressure points of Sarah's face: her left temple, her right temple, and the bridge of her nose. The Eternal began to mutter the ancient incantations of her people. Her voice rippled like bubbles in a stream and was as strong as steel, but the meaning of the words spoken were lost on the Doctor, the man who knew 5 billion languages. Before his eyes, the speckles of starlight along the contours of Laurana's skin dissolved and coalesced into a shining globule of light, suspended in midair. As Laurana's chanting increased, the light flowed forward until Sarah's body was encased in an envelope of shimmering, shining luminescence. The Doctor could only watch in fascination, marveling at an event never witnessed before in the history of the universe.

The process ended abruptly when Laurana sighed, and dropped her hand from Sarah's face. The Eternal's skin was now entirely black, a shadow of her former brilliance and elegance. She gave the Doctor one last, grateful smile, before her exhausted form disintegrated into ebony dust, and from dust into nothingness.

Within seconds, Laurana was gone.

"Goodbye, my friend." The Doctor murmured, and bowed his head in mourning.

Someone always died. Someone must always die. There cannot be peace without war, good without evil, and there cannot be light without shadow. All life carries with it the eventuality of death. They complement each other, two partners locked together forever in the dance of Time. All good things must end. Death is the final, undiscovered country, from whose border no traveler returns.

But, while there is life, there is hope. Nobody knows that quite like the Doctor.

* * *

The dancers danced on, and Sarah began to breathe.

================== Epilogue


	21. Epilogue

_From the personal memoirs of Sarah Jane Smith.  
March 14th, 2006_

* * *

They say time heals all wounds. They say that the coming years, through additional pomp and circumstance, work to drown out the dark reminders of the past. Growing up and living your life gives you so much more to worry about. Memories tend to get buried under piles of shopping lists and wedding invites and mortgage and taxes and old tea bags. The past gets buried beneath the present.

So, in a way, time does not heal all wounds. Time smothers them.

In my case, time, being one of the facets _contributing_ to my wounds, serves only to prolong a deep, lingering sense of regret and bitterness.

It's daft, but the one day, the one moment of my time with the Doctor that I remember most was the moment I lost him forever. It was a moment born of oddity, for I can't even remember the events leading up to _how_ I came to lose him forever. To this day, 30 years later, I can't recall what happened before I woke up in my room aboard the TARDIS, looking somewhat the worse for wear and remembering nothing since our latest adventure in Renaissance Italy. I was achey, sore, and incredibly tired; I had the mother of all headaches and a faint buzzing reverberating between my ears. I wanted nothing more than to curl up beneath the covers and go back to sleep for another hour, for another day, for the rest of eternity.

But, let's face it, I've never liked being bedridden. I still don't. It makes me feel helpless and senile, and it gives people an excuse to baby me. I _refuse_ to let people treat me like a child, even someone as well-meaning as the Doctor. So, regardless of the physical pain and the splitting headache, I swung my feet over the bed and got up. I needed to find some answers. I needed to find the Doctor.

I don't know how much time passed after emerging from my room. I strolled down corridor after endless corridor in search of something on the fringe of my mind that refused to come to fruition as a solid, concrete idea. I was dressed in little more than a starchy, skimpy white dress, sort of like a hospital gown. But my modesty as well as my memory seemed inconveniently absent at that moment. They just didn't seem to matter at the time. The only thing that mattered was finding the Doctor.

I pressed on. I refused to be deterred, by either my own physical inefficiencies or the TARDIS's quirks. The old girl must have been playing tricks with me, because no matter how hard I tried, I could not locate the console room. I was faced with corridor after corridor, whitewash after whitewash, monotony after monotony.

Then, out of the blue, I found him. The Doctor rounded a corner at the same moment I rounded its twin at the opposite end of a nondescript hallway. I very nearly barreled into him. In that single moment of fluster, I absorbed the details of my companion. He had been waltzing around the TARDIS in his stocking feet. He was in shirtsleeves and trousers; his vest, coat, cravat, and scarf were curiously absent. His etched features were downcast and sullen, his great eyes bored holes into the grating of the TARDIS floor. Those eyes did not register me. They did not register anything.

I couldn't bring myself to speak. I just regarded him in awkward silence as he murmured something broken and lispy under his breath. Then, drawn on by some unknown mission which clearly exceeded the importance of my own well-being, the Doctor shuffled off and was lost to the glare of the corridor.

It became a pattern, but I don't know exactly how long it lasted. I shambled onward, unaware of the passing hours, unsure of what to do. My mind, the one asset I had complete and unequivocal confidence in, seemed fogged. It felt difficult to recall details of my past. I forgot the place where I was born. I forgot my favorite place to grab fish and chips back home (wherever that was). At one horrifying point, I even forgot my own name.

Right then, I knew how the elderly must feel when faced with the oncoming demon of dementia. Not only was memory loss humiliating, it was terrifying. I was a journalist; my entire purpose in life revolved around the recollection of factual detail. I felt as though a chunk of my identity, a chunk of what made me Sarah Jane Smith, had simply detached itself like a piece of a melting iceberg. The fear it invoked, the irrational, all-to-human fear of insecurity and the unknown, was all-consuming. For a woman who takes pride in her own sense of resolve and self-dignity, amnesia was a fate worse than death.

I've already said that I don't like it when people mollycoddle me. But it's a basic component of our nature that companionship, the strength one draws from a fellow human being, is often the best salve for an addled mind. For the first time in my life, I needed someone to reassure me and tell me that everything was going to be okay. I needed someone to affirm my identity and give me a sense of purpose again. I am nothing if not a woman of purpose.

But the blasted Doctor didn't seem to care about my predicament. Over that indeterminable period of detached wanderlust, our paths crossed maybe three or four times. On the rare occasion I did see him, I always opened my mouth to say something, but was shut down by the extent of the Doctor's dejectedness. I wanted so desperately for that one insufferable constant in my fevered perception of reality to simply _listen_. But before I could find the resolve to break my silence, the Doctor would shuffle on, and I would miss my opportunity. He was always staring at his feet, making a conscious effort to ignore me. I couldn't find it in my sore heart to follow or protest. Perhaps I was a coward for not standing my ground, but more likely I was afraid of being admonished. Afraid of being called childish, silly. _Stupid little Sarah_.

Again, the Doctor just didn't seem to care.

It has taken me 30 years, hundreds of sleepless nights, and quite a few fits of utter despair to realize how pathetically wrong I was. A small part of my younger self, I think, knew the truth at the time, but was too naive to see it in the clarity I do now. The Doctor, with his meandering and self-occupational grumbling, had seemed to be searching for something within the vast interior of the TARDIS. Something lost, and more important than anything else in the universe. Something more important than me.

As I trailed him through the corridors of eternity, through the unbroken silence that shrouded the two of us like a veil, I came to realize, as I have affirmed through wisdom of age, that the Doctor was not looking for anything lost. _He_ was the lost one, and was looking desperately to be found.

The Doctor had lost himself, and with it, his sense of purpose. And, suddenly, I had found my own.

This time, I was ready for him. I felt anxiously prepared, like a soldier before a battle. I held my ground, wanting HIM to come to ME.

I waited until I heard the Doctor's heavy, padded footfalls, and saw the fringes of his curly hair and beaky nose round the corner. I stood directly in front of him, daring him to maneuver around me. For the first time in what seemed like a small eternity, the Doctor was forced to raise his head and look at me. _Really_ looked at me. I saw such despair, such sorrow, such inconsolable _guilt_ in his deep eyes that all sense of reason seemed to flee from me like animals before a fire. The silence between us was absolute; we simply regarded each other with the hesitant, wide-eyed stares of frightened children.

Suddenly, I blurted, "It's not your fault."

I still don't know where the words came from. Even to my current self, their origins remain a mystery. They seemed incredibly important at the time, but they were meaningless to me, nonsensical. What something of crucial importance could I blame the Doctor for? I considered his recent actions, his ignoring me, but somehow it felt like more than that. Something deeper. Something terrible.

At my outburst, the Doctor's thin-lipped mouth turned down. It opened and closed in a muted attempt to form words. Eventually, he simply resigned to hang his shaggy head in despair.

And cry.

The tears were silent and slow-rolling, trickling sluggishly down his face until they dropped with a flat plop to the TARDIS floor. I had never seen the Doctor cry before, and I hope never to see something as heart-wrenching ever again.

In the inevitable way that one does when faced with a dear friend in distress, I joined him. We held each other in our arms and cried until our souls were empty of all but the hollow ache of desolation. I wept for my lost memories and my stolen purpose. I wept because of the constant reminders of how cruel and unfeeling the universe could be to even the most wonderful people. I wept for the Doctor, and I wept because I knew, deep in my heart, that the bond between us had been severed in ways that could never be fully repaired.

Days from then, the two of us would find ourselves in a quarry, on earth. I would find the Hand of a creature born from the cesspool of revenge and hatred, and the Doctor would risk everything in an attempt to rectify its pitiful existence. It was the day the Doctor received the summons from Gallifrey, and, without another glance, stranded me on a backend street in Aberdeen. Some would say that _that_ was the day I lost the Doctor. But they're wrong.

For that day aboard the TARDIS, that day we cried for each other's suffering, was the day I truly lost the Doctor. And that was the day he lost me.

There are some wounds Time can never heal.

* * *

_The End_

**Okay guys, thanks for tuning in! Please let me know what you think via review or PM. I do apologize for the length, but I hope it was worth it. Live long and prosper! - TheOtherDoctor =/\=**


End file.
